


The Western Wall

by cyankelpie



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale Needs a Hug (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Flaming sword-related trauma, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, I know the premise sounds sad but bear with me, It only hurts when I laugh, Some Humor, Some angst, They really have nothing to do with the plot huh, What if they didn't meet on the wall, discorporation, even slower burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 22,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24461557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyankelpie/pseuds/cyankelpie
Summary: Crowley picks a different angel to bother after the apple incident, and gets a very different and more violent response. From that point, things develop a little differently.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 109
Kudos: 122
Collections: Aspec-friendly Good Omens





	1. 4004 B.C., Eden

**Author's Note:**

> So listen, I know this sounds sad, but that's only because it probably will be. But only a little! There will be happier parts, and funnier parts, and Aziraphale and Crowley will still meet and become best friends! It will just take a little longer, and they will have had slightly different experiences that made them slightly different people. But I wouldn't have written this if I wasn't planning on having some fun with it, or a happy ending.
> 
> Chapter lengths will probably be very inconsistent, since there's not much that can happen until they meet properly. Expect the next few to be very short, followed by some much longer parts.

The sky was turning grey and making a low rumbling noise, which Crawly had never seen it do before. That was probably a sign that he had successfully caused trouble. Things had really spiraled out of control after Eve ate the apple, so Crawly, true to his namesake, had crawled under a rock to hide until Mum calmed down a little. The sky was doing weird things now, but at least no ominous voices were booming out of it anymore, so he guessed that it was safe to come out. He wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to do now.

No, that wasn’t true. He was supposed to go downstairs and report on his brilliant machinations with the apple tree (now the humans knew the difference between good and evil, which was bad for…reasons? He didn’t…), he just didn’t really want to. He’d prefer to stick around here and see what happened next. Unfortunately, since the humans were nowhere to be found in the garden, the only way to do that was to climb the wall, and he doubted he’d be able to sneak past the guardian angels a second time.

Which way had they even gone? West, maybe? He’d picked the direction at random, but convinced himself that, since the sun was in that direction, it would make sense. He could only see the back of the angel guarding it, and was too far away to see anything other than white wings and long, charcoal-black hair. Maybe the angels had calmed down a little since everything that had happened. That flaming sword was probably just for show. Anyway, why should she care if Crawly wanted to leave that way? What was done was done. It wasn’t like killing Crowley would un-tempt Adam and Eve.

It was probably a terrible idea to go talking to angels, but it had been so long since Crawly had talked to anyone other who wasn’t a demon, and since he didn’t much care for discussing torture methods it was difficult to find overlapping interests there. Anyway, what was the worst that could happen?

He slithered up the wall and assumed a more human-shaped form, avoiding looking at the angel as if he hadn’t noticed her. “Well,” he said, “that went down like—”

The angel cut him in half before he could finish the sentence.

There was some sort of commotion in the west. Aziraphale, guardian of the Eastern Gate, turned around. There was something dark on top of the western wall, and the guardian’s sword glimmered for a moment before she extinguished and sheathed it. How odd. Aziraphale would have gone over to ask what that had been about, but drawing any sort of attention to himself, now that he was conspicuously swordless, was probably a bad idea. He turned to face east again and thought no more of it.

He didn’t know what he’d been thinking, giving the sword away. Yes, Adam and Eve would need something to protect themselves with, but did it have to be _his_ sword? Surely if the Almighty wanted them to survive in the wilderness, She would have provided something? Not that he doubted that She would, of course. Of _course_ She would take care of her creations. So it had probably been completely unnecessary for Aziraphale to go giving away his own weapon. In fact, it might not be too late for him to go get it back.

A few seconds after he thought this, a massive, hungry lion stalked up to Adam and Eve. Aziraphale winced. Now was probably not the best time to ask them to return the sword. Anyway, someone would probably notice if he left his post, anyway, and then he’d be in real trouble. He cast a few furtive glances at the other guardians and wished Adam would stop waving the sword around so obviously. He’d already told the Almighty that he had misplaced it. Would she believe that Adam and Eve had just happened to find it, too?

Oh, dear. He had lied to the Almighty, hadn’t he? No good could possibly come of that. His breathing became shallow, and his heart was beating very fast. It took him a moment to realize that his new corporation was responding to panic. He had disobeyed orders, and then he had lied about it. What kind of an angel was he?

He wouldn’t slip up like that again, he promised himself, and the panic-response slowed down a little. No, from now on he would follow all the rules to the letter. He’d be better next time.

“Would you _shut up,_ ” someone snapped.

Crawly realized abruptly that he was screaming, and snapped his mouth shut. His entire midriff felt like it was on fire. He blinked hard, trying to sort out his jumbled head. The last thing he remembered was—

Oh yeah, the angel. That had been a nice greeting.

Gingerly, he looked down at himself. He was still in one piece, although there was a throbbing pain in his gut. He prodded his stomach and immediately regretted it. His vision whited out for a second. He opened his mouth to ask where he was, but it was obvious from the stench that he was in hell. “What happened?” he asked instead, as his vision slowly came back.

“I guess you broke your corporation already,” said the demon who had told him to shut up, a squat fellow with fuzzy moth antennae. “First demon ever to do that. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” said Crawly, even though he knew it was sarcastic. He got to his feet, wincing. “Do I get a new one, or…?”

“That is the new one.”

Crawly looked down at the wound, even though he couldn’t see it under his robe. “Really?”

“Oh, sorry,” said the moth demon. “Is it not _good_ enough for you? Maybe you’d like one ten feet tall, so you can get it cut into even more pieces.”

“Fine, fine,” said Crawly hurriedly. “It’s just, I think this one’s already damaged.” He touched his stomach more carefully, gritting his teeth against the pain. There was some sort of distortion in the skin there. Maybe a scar?

“Already damaged?” the moth demon repeated, their voice rising. “That corporation is in mint condition. It only just got through inspection. Nobody thought anyone would need one so early, see, except then _you_ turn up—”

“Alright _,_ fine, I’ll keep this one.” It seemed unlikely, anyway, that the corporation would have been damaged in the exact place where the angel had cut him. Crawly just hadn’t realized that discorporation could leave such painful scars. He’d need to be extremely careful in the future.

“Which way to Beelzebub’s office?” he asked the moth demon. “I’ve got to give a report.”

“You’re not finished here yet.” The moth demon reached behind a desk and handed him a massive stack of papers. “You’ll need to fill these out. I’d have made you do it before giving you the corporation, except you would stop bloody screaming. We’re still ironing out the re-corporation process, anyway.”

Crawly took the stack of forms with a sigh. They were much heavier than they had any right to be. “Have you got a pen?”

The demon handed him a ballpoint pen, and Crawly sat down in a nearby chair to fill them out. “This pen’s almost out of ink,” he said after trying it.

“They all are,” said the moth-demon. “This is hell.”

Perfect. Filling out all these forms would be fun. Crawly struggled with the faded pen and made a mental note to never get discorporated again.


	2. 3004 B.C., Mesopotamia

Aziraphale wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to be doing here, besides standing around and making sure everything happened like it was supposed to, which it would, because it was supposed to. The logic seemed a bit circular, but he hadn’t asked any questions when he’d received the order. He knew where that could get you, and he was on thin ice after the flaming sword business. At least, he assumed he was. Nobody had mentioned it since, but that didn’t necessarily mean nobody knew. It was difficult to tell where you stood with heaven sometimes. All the more reason to tread carefully.

So Aziraphale didn’t have any choice but to stick around and watch everybody drown. Well, not _everybody,_ of course. Noah’s family would be fine. And all those animals he was bringing with them. Anyway, there were so many humans on Earth that the number who would drown in this flood was statistically insignificant, and they were all going to die eventually. When you thought about it like that, it really wasn’t so bad at all.

Aziraphale was trying very hard to think about it like that.

One of the unicorns broke away from the herd, and Aziraphale startled, but one of the people watching had managed to be in the right place at the right time to cut the animal off. He raised his hands to calm the creature with surprising effectiveness, and then gently turned it around and sent it cantering back to the others. Shem waved at the man in thanks as he herded the unicorn back in line.

The red-haired man waved back, and as he turned he glanced for a fraction of a second in Aziraphale’s direction. The angel caught a glimpse of yellow in his eyes and stiffened. A demon. There was a demon here.

Turning, Aziraphale pushed his way back through the small crowd that had gathered to watch Noah herd the animals onto the boats. “Excuse me—Pardon me, could I just come through here—” He needed to reach the demon before he did anything nefarious. No doubt he was trying to cause exactly the sort of mischief that Aziraphale was supposed to prevent. Nobody had actually told him to keep an eye out for demons, but it was always implied. Chasing a demon would give him something to do besides watch everybody drown, at least.

But once he got free of the crowd, the demon was nowhere to be found. He must have slipped away unnoticed. “Oh, bother,” muttered Aziraphale, looking around for him. Hopefully he wouldn’t show up again. Aziraphale wasn’t actually sure how to deal with demons, and wasn’t very interested in trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess there are unicorns in this timeline now


	3. 33 A.D., Golgotha

Crowley tried not to wince as they hammered in the nails. As a demon, she should probably be enjoying the man’s pain a lot more, but all she could think about was the bright young man she’d met in the middle of the desert, who had chatted with her a while. _Hey,_ Crowley had said, when she realized who she was talking to, _you’ve got to be hungry. Can’t you, like, turn one of these rocks into bread or something? Fine, I mean, I_ guess _I could do it for you, if you’re gonna starve yourself…_

The hammer clanged again, and Jesus cried out in pain, still asking Her to forgive them even as they hung him up to die. Crowley gave up on trying to be demonic and directed her gaze anywhere else. It was too hard to watch. She didn’t even want to be here.

Her eyes landed on a familiar silhouette, and she tensed. The angel she’d seen at the ark was here, probably watching the proceedings with all the satisfaction Crowley was supposed to have but didn’t. His back was turned, but Crowley could imagine his cold, self-righteous expression clearly enough. Crowley would never understand the _why_ of it all, but she still kept asking, over and over. God never gave any sign that She had heard the question.

But what was Crowley going to do, go over and ask the angel to tell her the Great Plan? She’d learned her lesson there, thank you very much. The scar around her middle had faded a little over time, but it still hurt sometimes, and she didn't think it would ever go away. She wasn’t stupid enough to go through that a second time just because she might have some questions. The only answer would be a smiting.

The angel’s presence gave her an excuse to leave, at least. She slunk away before he noticed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone asks, Crowley was tempting Jesus in the desert and definitely not just hanging out with a cool dude she met.


	4. 41 A.D., Rome

“Give me a jug of whatever you think is drinkable.”

Aziraphale frowned and turned in his chair. There was an aura of hell about the man who had just walked in. A demon, then? That was inconvenient. Aziraphale had just been killing time until Petronus’ restaurant opened for the evening, and then he’d need to get there fast to get the freshest oysters. Smiting a demon might not fit into his timetable.

He didn’t really want to do any smiting, anyway. Aziraphale had never enjoyed the more violent parts of his angelic duties, and there weren’t any heavenly plans going on right now that the demon could interrupt. At worst, the demon was hatching some scheme of his own. Maybe Aziraphale could just…firmly warn him against trying anything on his watch. Yes, that ought to be sufficient. No need for things to get messy.

He walked up to the demon and tapped him on the shoulder, straightening and trying to look imposing. “Um, pardon me—”

The demon glanced his way and choked on whatever it was he was drinking. “Shit.” He scrambled out of his chair, knocked it over behind him to block Aziraphale’s path, and bolted.

Aziraphale stayed where he was, blinking, mildly confused. He knew for a fact he didn’t look that frightening. “I just wanted a quick word,” he called, but the demon was already out the door. Aziraphale sighed, shook his head, and went back to his game of tic tac toe. At least now he knew he’d make it to Petronus’ in time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crowley has still never eaten an oyster.
> 
> Things will pick up next chapter. These two can't avoid each other forever.


	5. 537 A.D., Wessex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crowley ruined a perfectly good meet cute in Rome, but we'll see how they do on take two.

“You have sought the black knight, foolish one,” said Crowley, making his voice deep and intimidating. “But you have found…your death.” It was a good opening line, if he did say so himself. He had used it fourteen times so far.

The angel, who had introduced himself as “Sir Aziraphale,” unfortunately did not look perturbed. “Yes, well, I was hoping we might be able to chat.” He glanced around pointedly at Crowley’s lackeys lurking in the fog. “Somewhere private, perhaps?”

Behind the visor, Crowley’s eyes narrowed. “You came here, fully armed and armored, for a chat?”

Aziraphale glanced down at his gleaming silver plate and chainmail a little self-consciously. “Well, I—I’m meant to be a knight.”

Crowley considered for a moment. The angel didn’t look very intimidating, but looks could be deceiving, and the sword at the angel’s belt made him nervous. “Leave your sword here. Then we’ll talk.”

“And you’ll drop yours, then?”

Crowley groaned inwardly. “Yes, alright, fine,” he said, unbuckling his scabbard. His sword was just ordinary steel, anyway, which wouldn’t be of much use against the Host’s flaming weapons. He held it out and waited for the angel to disarm himself first. One could never be too careful.

Aziraphale dropped his scabbard on the ground, and Crowley followed suit. “You guys,” he said, snapping at one of his henchmen. “Watch the swords.”

“What was that, sir?”

“I said watch the swords.” He pointed at them.

The man shook his head. “What? I can’t…” he pointed at his ear and shrugged.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Perhaps if you lifted your visor—”

“WATCH THE SWORDS,” Crowley shouted through the helmet, and the man finally seemed to understand him. The last thing he needed was to expose his slitted yellow eyes, particularly when the angel was within lunging distance of his flaming sword. The scar in his gut twinged, and he suppressed the urge to press a hand to it. That wasn’t going to happen again. The angel didn’t know he was one of the Enemy.

He jerked his head gruffly for Aziraphale to follow him and walked a short distance away. He meant to head for his camp, but it was so foggy that he couldn’t figure out which direction it was in. After leading the angel the wrong way for about five minutes and pretending he knew where he was going, he gave up and stopped at a fallen tree next to a boulder, which would serve them well enough for seating arrangements. He sat down on the fallen trunk and gestured for the angel to take the boulder.

Instead, Aziraphale pulled a miracle down from heaven and conjured a chair. “Now then—”

“What the heaven was that?” Crowley interrupted. If he was going to keep his cover as a human, he ought to at least act surprised when things appeared out of thin air.

“It’s a chair,” said Aziraphale.

“Yes, I’m familiar. It just came out of nowhere.”

The angel gave him a strange look for a few moments. “I was under the impression that demons could do miracles just the same.”

Crowley blinked hard. “They, uh, probably can,” he said hurriedly. “I wouldn’t know.”

Aziraphale looked for a moment like he wanted to say something, then shook his head. “Anyway. You’ve been causing me quite a lot of trouble, ah…?”

Crowley realized he was waiting for a name. “The black knight,” he supplied.

“That’s a bit rude,” said Aziraphale, frowning. “I’ve already given you my name.”

“You may refer to me as the black knight.” Crowley’s voice rose a little. The angel’s calm politeness confused him and put him on edge.

The angel actually _rolled his eyes_ and went on. “Very well, then, black knight. You’ve been spreading quite a lot of disharmony in King Arthur’s kingdom lately. Now, meanwhile I’m meant to be promoting peace. I’m sure you see why this is a problem for me.”

Crowley didn’t really see where this was going. “You want me to stop because you asked nicely?”

“I would appreciate it,” said the angel hopefully. “I’d rather not have to resort to smiting you.”

Crowley stared at him for a moment through the slits in his visor. What kind of an angel didn’t want to smite things? He was stuck on that point for so long that he forgot he was supposed to be undercover as a human until he had already been silent for uncomfortably long. “Um, ha! What?” he said. “Smite me? Like you’re some kind of…what, avenging angel?”

“Oh! Goodness, how rude of me.” Aziraphale shook his head with a small laugh. “I thought it would be obvious. Yes, I’m a principality. I suppose I never introduced myself properly.”

Crowley gaped at him for a moment, glad that the visor hid his expression. The angel was being much too nonchalant about this. “So, let me get this straight,” said Crowley. “You’re an angel, and I’m…” he trailed off, reluctant to break his cover if he didn’t have to.

“A demon,” said Aziraphale impatiently. “And I am asking if you would please stay out of the way of my divine work.”

And the angel _didn’t want to smite him?_ Was he lying? He didn’t look like it. Maybe he was a bit mad, if he thought reasoning with a demon was going to work. “I’ve got a job to do, too,” said Crowley, lowering his voice to an intimidating growl. He reached up to raise his visor and flash his snake-eyes at the angel. “And you picked the wrong demon to—”

“Oh, it’s you again,” said Aziraphale, blinking. “Didn’t I see you in Rome?”

Shit. He remembered that? Maybe he’d forgotten the part where Crowley fled like a coward.

“You left in an awful hurry,” said Aziraphale. “I only wanted a word.”

Dammit. “Why the heaven are you here?” The question Crowley really wanted to ask finally burst out of him. “Trying to politely ask me to stop doing my job—What do you think I’m gonna say? Sure, I give up, your side can just have Earth. I’d hate to _inconvenience_ you. You win.”

The angel rolled his eyes again. “There’s no need to be difficult.”

“Why should I listen to you? No, really, what makes you think I will?”

The angel straightened in a way that was probably supposed to be imposing, but instead he just looked like a puffed-up bird in armor and a cape. “As I said, I would rather not resort to smiting you. Consider this your first warning.”

“My _first_ warning?” How many was he going to get?

The angel gave what was probably supposed to be a decisive nod. “So take your wiles elsewhere, if you please. You are making it very difficult for me to make any headway.”

The reverse was true as well. Crowley leaned back and tried to fold his arms, but the armor made it difficult. “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll stop my work…if you stop with yours.”

“What?” The angel looked shocked, as if he hadn’t been asking Crowley to do exactly that mere moments ago. “I can’t do that!”

“Well, look at it this way,” said Crowley. “We’re already cancelling each other out, yeah? It’d have the same effect, just, we wouldn’t have to work as hard.”

“But—That isn’t—No!”

Crowley shrugged. “Well, that’s my offer. You can take it or leave it.”

“I will leave it, then.” The angel got to his feet and miracled the chair out of existence. “The absolute _nerve—_ ”

“You see the irony here?”

The angel huffed in irritation and looked around at the fog. “Which way did we come from? I left my sword—You know what, I can just get a new one. Goodbye.” He waved a hand and trudged off through the fog.

“You can?” Crowley asked before he could stop himself. It couldn’t have been his heaven-issued flaming sword, then. No angel would let that out of their sight. Which begged the question: where was Aziraphale’s?


	6. 1601 A.D., London

Aziraphale popped another grape into his mouth and gave a little cheer for the actors. Since they were in the middle of performing a death scene, this might not have been the time for it. But they looked so discouraged to be performing in a near-empty theater, the poor dears. Aziraphale was doing his best to be supportive, but he was unfortunately only one person. It was such a pity. Shakespeare’s prose was superb, and _Hamlet_ was just as good as any of his other plays, but for whatever reason this one just hadn’t drawn a crowd. “Complete dud,” Aziraphale overheard the bard saying at one point. “It’d take a miracle to get anyone to come and see _Hamlet_.”

That was a thought. With a bit of work, Aziraphale could certainly miracle the play to popularity. He brightened. Perhaps he would—Oh, but no, he was supposed to go to Edinburgh. He didn’t have much time to promote the play before then. He sighed. Perhaps a real miracle would come through?

He had intended to try to help when he got back, but by then Shakespeare had given up on _Hamlet_ , and the King’s Men stopped performing it. It didn’t really matter, he tried to tell himself. It was only one play. But he did wish it hadn’t vanished into obscurity.

Some years later, the same theatre was packed for _Twelfth Night._ Aziraphale wondered where all these fans had been during the first few showings of _Hamlet._ Shakespeare’s comedies tended to draw a different crowd than his tragedies, but still—

His thoughts trailed off as he recognized a familiar head of red hair up in the balcony. The demon was doubled over and wheezing with laughter, one hand clutching his stomach while the other steadied his sunglasses to keep them from falling off. He was biting his lip in a failed attempt to contain his laughter, and shaking from the effort of it. When he finally caught his breath, there was a wide grin on his face.

Aziraphale blinked. He hadn’t known demons laughed like that. Was there something particularly evil in the play that he was enjoying, which Aziraphale wasn’t aware of? He looked anxiously at the stage just in time to see Malvolio enter, beaming, in hideous yellow stockings, and the whole theater burst into laughter, Aziraphale included. Well, he decided, glancing back at the demon, who was now in danger of falling over the railing, it was a funny play. He just hadn’t realized demons could have a good sense of humor.

“Heheh, oof.” Crowley staggered home from the theater, both arms wrapped around his stomach. Every so often, another chuckle would burst out of him as he remembered some part of the play, and then he winced as the scar in is stomach throbbed. Satan, that William guy knew how to write a good joke. And Crowley had thought his other plays were funny. He’d outdone himself this time. Crossdressing twins, hilarious misunderstandings, and for once a proper love triangle, with all three sides accounted for—He giggled, remembering the characters’ confusion when the second twin appeared and Cesario seemingly duplicated himself, and then hissed at the sharp pain in his stomach.

It was too funny, actually. Crowley leaned against a wall and gritted his teeth until the pain subsided. Maybe he wouldn’t see that one again. Shakespeare had plenty of other plays with better enjoyment-to-pain ratios for Crowley. He should probably stop putting himself through this altogether, but in spite of his injury, he did appreciate a good joke.

At the other end of the street, he caught sight of a gentleman in white and other pastels, and frowned. He could have sworn it was that angel, Aziraphale, except that he was coming from the Globe Theater, which didn’t match up. He was pretty sure angels had no sense of humor at all. If he had seen _Twelfth Night_ , he’d probably found a list of dozens of things in it to disapprove of. He probably wasn’t happy with the recent flourishing of the theatre at all, now that Crowley thought about it. Was he, perhaps, doing research before he took action against the play?

Crowley wasn’t keen on returning to the dull morality plays of a hundred years ago, and he thought the rest of hell might back him up on that, though for very different reasons. He’d have to make sure the angel didn’t get far. Maybe he’d sit him down for a nice chat and politely ask him to cease and desist.

The idea made him chuckle and then wince again. Aziraphale was about to walk past him, and he pulled back into the shadow of the building he was leaning against. He looked up at the angel and blinked. Aziraphale didn’t look offended or put out by the play at all. He actually looked rather pleased.

Crowley blended in well enough with the shadows that Aziraphale walked right by without noticing him. “Huh,” Crowley muttered, watching him go. Maybe even angels had _some_ taste.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both of you, check your assumptions.


	7. 1793 A.D., Paris

They were having _another_ execution.

Crowley didn’t understand how they hadn’t already had enough of them. He certainly had. If he wasn’t posing as the mastermind behind all this turmoil, he’d be on the first ship home to England. He hadn’t even meant to take credit this time, hell just sent the commendation and he had to book it across the channel as fast as he could and pretend he’d been in France the whole time. Revolutionaries streamed into the square, and Crowley sighed and followed with resignation. Might as well find out whose death he was taking credit for this time.

The guillotine had already been through several necks by the time he got there. He rarely watched the entire show, once he’d glanced around to see whether anyone particularly noteworthy was here. They had almost run out of aristocrats at this point, but it looked like they’d managed to find a really frilly one this time, in the kind of dress most people had the sense not to go out in anymore, all lace and gold brocade and—

Oh, no. It was that ridiculous angel again.

Crowley stopped in his tracks and stared as they dragged the angel forward. Aziraphale seemed to be trying to talk them out of it (predictable, really), but they managed to get him under the blade anyway. What was he thinking, running around dressed like that? Why was he in France at all? Was he trying to somehow undermine the effectiveness of the guillotine by miraculously surviving it? He doubted that would work, after it had already killed so many other people.

The angel cast a helpless glance over the crowd and locked eyes with Crowley. Surprise crossed over his face, and then anger. _You!_ he mouthed.

_What are you doing here?_ Crowley mouthed back. The angel’s forehead furrowed a little, so Crowley mimed it out. _What,_ he mouthed again, with an exaggerated shrug, _are you,_ he pointed at the angel, _doing,_ he made a circular motion—

The blade fell, and Crowley jumped back. Okay. So, clearly not the miraculous-survival plan, then. Well, if Aziraphale wanted to let them discorporate him, that was his business. Crowley shook his head and turned to leave the execution.


	8. 1800 A.D., London

Crowley stood in the street for a moment and looked up at the sign of _A.Z. Fell and Co._ Not very subtle. Then again, the angel had never tried very hard to hide. Should he go in? If this was where Aziraphale had set up his base of operations, he would probably have his flaming sword with him, and Crowley would be at a disadvantage on the angel’s home turf, even if it was somewhere as seemingly harmless as an antique bookshop. But Crowley was intensely curious, as always, and his fear of Aziraphale had been waning as they continued to bump into each other and the angel still showed no inclination to smite him. If worst came to worst, Crowley could run very fast.

Crowley stepped forward and pushed open the door to the shop. A bell chimed above him. The first thing he noticed was that it was very dusty. The second was that it was cramped and disorganized in a way he wouldn’t have expected from a representative of heaven. From what little he remembered, everything up there had always been open, clean, and empty.

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” called the angel, and a moment later, he appeared around a shelf. As soon as he saw Crowley, he gave a huff of vexation. “No,” he said firmly, turning to retreat into a small room at the back of the shop. “I am simply _not_ in the mood to deal with any demonic schemes, not after the decade I’ve had. Go away.”

He hadn’t said “please” even once. This was easily the worst mood Crowley had ever seen him in. “Must be some decade you’re having.”

“You’ve no idea,” said Aziraphale, and then huffed furiously. “Oh, no, I suppose you do, seeing as you were the one who got me discorporated in the first place—”

“I did what?”

“Don’t play dumb. I saw you there in Paris, right before they executed me. You stirred up all that trouble in France, didn’t you? Well.” He gave a humorless laugh. “ _Very_ well done, black knight. Grade-A demonic work. I’ll bet they promoted you for discorporating an angel.”

Crowley decided he probably shouldn’t tell Aziraphale that he wasn’t responsible for any of the French revolution, or that he had no idea Aziraphale would even be in Paris, or that he hadn’t mentioned Aziraphale in any of his reports, in case they wanted him discorporate an angel again he didn’t know how to pull it off. “Uh, yeah,” he said, a little confused. “How’s it my fault you didn’t think to miracle yourself free?”

“You think I didn’t want to?” Aziraphale snapped. “My superiors reprimanded me for frivolous miracles the month before _._ ”

“Saving your own skin is frivolous?”

“I don’t know! But I can’t afford to step another toe out of line, not after—” He broke off and sat down in the chair behind the front desk, resting his head in one hand with his elbow on a short stack of books, since there was not a bare inch of space anywhere on the desk. He drew a deep breath. “Just go away, please. This is your final warning.”

Crowley, who had already gotten something like six final warnings from Aziraphale, stayed where he was. Was the angel shaking a little? Even the thought of disobeying orders seemed to terrify him. “And I thought my bosses were hard to deal with,” he muttered.

Aziraphale glanced up sharply. “Wh—No—No, this isn’t _their_ fault. If I’d just followed orders a little better—” He drew another deep, bracing breath. “There’s…been talk of a demotion.”

That caught Crowley off guard. “What?”

“Well, you’d know as well as anyone that I’m not exactly heaven’s best and brightest,” said Aziraphale, with another short, humorless laugh. “Don’t worry, though. One more slip-up or discorporation, and I’ll be out of your hair, and they’ll send a proper angel down to take my place.”

“One more—How many times have you been discorporated?”

“Er.” Aziraphale cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Once or twice too many, let’s say.”

The scar around Crowley’s stomach twinged, and he rubbed it with a grimace. He’d been excessively careful since the first discorporation, since he didn’t fancy the idea of collecting any more painful scars, and he’d managed to avoid it since. He wondered how much damage Aziraphale had accrued over the millennia, if he’d been discorporated multiple times. “I didn’t know you’d be in Paris,” he said, by way of an apology.

Aziraphale didn’t say anything for a moment. “What did you want?”

He probably ought to pretend he had some hellish plot in mind that involved negotiating with the angel, and then decided to just tell the truth. “Was going to ask what the heaven an angel’s doing with a bookshop.”

Aziraphale glanced up, relaxed just a tiny bit, and looked around his bookshop. “It’s—it’s a bit silly, I suppose. I just started collecting them one day, and it got a bit out of hand, and I needed someplace to put them all…”

Crowley gave the shelves nearest to him a closer look. All of Aziraphale’s books looked very old, and many of them were probably quite valuable. The shelf nearest the door appeared to be mostly dramas, and he nodded with approval as he saw that the angel had managed to secure copies of all four of Shakespeare’s folios. “Impressive collection.”

Aziraphale didn’t thank him, exactly, but he did look a little grateful, and more than a little surprised. “It’s taken me quite a while to amass.”

Crowley glanced at the floor for a moment. An idea was taking shape in his head that he didn’t much like, but that he couldn’t seem to dismiss. With a sigh, he gave in, conjured a pad of paper and a pen, and scribbled down a date and an address. “Listen,” he said, tearing off the paper, stepping forward and setting it on the desk. “There’s going to be a robbery at this place on this date. Maybe even a murder to go with it. Going to cause a lot of panic and distrust in that neighborhood for a good while. If you can stop it, maybe you’ll get some extra points upstairs.”

Aziraphale raised his head and stared at Crowley, his mouth slightly open. He looked down at the piece of paper and blinked, and then he gave a small, hollow laugh. “Oh, I see. The last think you’d want is a _proper_ angel coming down here, isn’t it? They might actually get in your way.”

“You get in my way all the time.”

“You’re just saying that,” muttered Aziraphale.

Crowley could name several occasions, but it wouldn’t do to have the angel thinking he was being _nice_ to him. “A proper angel would probably discorporate me on sight.”

Aziraphale glanced up, a little surprised, like this hadn’t occurred to him before.

Crowley hesitated for a moment, and then the scar in his stomach started to ache, which convinced him. “Look, I don’t want to be smote, and you don’t want to be demoted, right? Common cause. Maybe I could help you out a little.”

Aziraphale stared down at the desk for a moment. He was thinking about it. Crowley waited impatiently as the angel drew a deep breath, and his jaw set as he made a decision. He looked up at Crowley. “No.”

“No?” Crowley repeated.

Aziraphale shook his head. “I _will_ be staying on Earth,” he said, with a stubborn glint in his eye, “but I will not be accepting help from a demon. I’ll do this on my own.”

Crowley hadn’t seen that glint of steel in Aziraphale before. This one was full of surprises. “Fine, then,” he said, reaching out to take the piece of paper he had dropped on the desk. “Guess you won’t be needing—”

Aziraphale’s hand clapped down on the paper. Crowley looked up at him in surprise. “Well,” said Aziraphale, turning a little pink, “now that I know about it, I can’t just sit idly by and let a robbery happen, can I?”

Not an idiot, then. Crowley left the paper and straightened up. “You didn’t get that from me, got it?”

“I don’t know _what_ you mean,” said Aziraphale, tucking the paper into a drawer and out of sight. He waved to shoo Crowley out the door. “Now, begone, black knight.”

“Crowley.” It seemed strange that he hadn’t introduced himself yet. To be fair, he had spent most of their distant acquaintance trying to avoid being smote by him. That didn’t seem to pose much of a danger anymore. He turned and sauntered nonchalantly to the door. “See you around, angel.”

As the door closed behind him, he heard Aziraphale burst out, “You know what my name is—!”

He grinned to himself. If Aziraphale was determined to stay on Earth, Crowley had a feeling he’d find a way to convince his superiors to let him. He didn’t really understand why it was an issue. Apart from his unwillingness to smite demons, and his apparent tendency towards discorporation, he seemed to be doing a pretty alright job as an angel. He certainly cared more about his job than Crowley ever had.

Well, he seemed to have a pretty good idea of how to impress his bosses. Crowley would just have to leave him to it. If nothing else, Aziraphale was a lot more entertaining than any proper angel was likely to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow a positive interaction, only 5,800 years behind schedule


	9. 1862 A.D., London

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for very sad, burned-out, self-deprecating Aziraphale in this chapter. I'm very sorry.

Aziraphale sat on his usual bench at St. James Park and tried to pretend that everything was fine. This was one of his frequent haunts, when he needed somewhere to sit and think, though admittedly he hadn’t given himself much time for that recently. He wasn’t really doing it now, either. His mind was wound into too tight a knot of panic. He’d really done it now. The shock and disbelief on Gabriel’s face as he had stormed out, and the anger on Sandalphon’s—He hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but he hadn’t been able to help himself somehow—That little medal had just been so _stupid_ —

Well. There went any chance he had at a promotion.

He tried to draw a calming breath and didn’t get very far before his chest constricted. The worst part was that everything had been fine. He had been doing fine—better than fine, actually, once he finally pulled himself together and committed to being a proper angel. It was exhausting, but he was sure he’d grow into it eventually. And everyone else had been telling him what a good job he’d been doing. Even Michael had been impressed, he’d overheard Uriel say that she hardly recognized his reports as being from the same Aziraphale, and then Gabriel showed up with that patronizing smile and the stupid medal, and told him to keep up the great work, and that they were all expecting even greater things from him in the future—

He groaned and put his head in his hands. Why couldn’t he have just accepted it? Why did he have to fly off the handle like that? For God’s sake, nothing had even happened. It was just—

He’d been working _so hard._

Well, working as hard as he always should have been, as an angel. He’d been an embarrassment before, hadn’t he? Always getting himself into trouble or discorporated—

—Maybe if they would stop telling him off for using miracles—

His fingers dug into his knees. He ought to go back and apologize, and accept the medal like he meant it. Because he did, of course, it was an honor for his work to be recognized. He should be proud.

He _should_ be, but—

He was. No, he was. This was what all that work had been for, hadn’t it? It was paying off. Now all he had to do was keep at it. If he just kept pushing himself harder—

Someone cleared their throat next to him, and he jolted out of the spiral of thoughts. Crowley was standing at the end of the bench, looking down at him with his hands in his pockets. “I’ve been standing here about five minutes, if you were wondering,” he said.

“Go away, Crowley,” Aziraphale hissed out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes darting around. “I can’t be seen talking to you in public.”

“Are any of your coworkers lurking around here?” he looked around. “Don’t think so. I sensed a few archangels in town earlier today, but they’re gone now. No one who matters is gonna see me.”

Aziraphale tried to sense Gabriel and Sandalphon’s auras, and saw that Crowley was right. They had left. He relaxed just a little.

“You’ve been busy,” said Crowley, a little gingerly.

Aziraphale nodded. His recent productivity must have made it more difficult for Crowley to do his job. Which was the goal, of course. Obviously.

Crowley tilted his head to look at him. “Er…What happened to your bookshop?”

It really must have been a while since they had spoken. Aziraphale’s heart twisted at the thought of his former home—No, not his home, of course, that was heaven. “I closed it,” he said, almost in a whisper.

“You did what?” said Crowley. “You didn’t sell all those books—”

Aziraphale shook his head sharply. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to go that far. His books were stored safely in a storage locker, but that meant he couldn’t pull one out and read whenever he felt like it. Which was for the best. No more distractions. “It wasn’t exactly the sort of hobby befitting of an angel,” he said. “Amassing material possessions like that. My time is better spent elsewise.”

“So owning books is morally wrong now?” said Crowley. “Guess I’d better go pick some up. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to sell—”

“Absolutely not,” he said sharply, before he could help himself. The idea of anyone else owning even one of his books, much less a demon—

But that was the old possessiveness again. They were just books. As an angel, he shouldn’t have attachments to things in this world. “I-I mean,” he said, trying to relax and clearing his throat. “I have no use for them. So…of course. Why couldn’t you have them?”

Both hands were clenched into fists against his knees. He couldn’t seem to swallow. It was silent for far too long, and then Crowley said, “I was joking, Aziraphale. Don’t read much anyway.”

Aziraphale’s hands released their death grip on thin air. He shouldn’t have been relieved that the demon wasn’t angling for some of his books. It didn’t _matter,_ they were only _books_ …

Crowley had sat down on the other side of the bench without an invitation. “Everything alright?” he asked cautiously.

Aziraphale looked up at him in surprise. Crowley’s forehead was crinkled in what might have been concern, if demons were capable of such feelings. Aziraphale wanted to be angry at him for pretending, but then all at once there was a lump in his throat and he was terrified that he might start crying, because nobody had asked if he was alright in such a long time, at least nobody who knew he was an angel. And he _wasn’t_ alright, he was exhausted, and no matter how much he did they kept asking more of him, and he’d just snapped and raised his voice at an archangel, and he missed his books, and he hadn’t eaten anything in nearly fifty years, and he was starting to _lose weight,_ which wasn’t something angels were supposed to do—

“Aziraphale?” Crowley looked legitimately alarmed now.

Through a great effort of will, Aziraphale fought down his emotions and drew a deep breath. He didn’t look at Crowley. “I’ve been better.”

Crowley didn’t seem to know what to say for a moment. “Er. Something happen?”

Aziraphale shot him a quick, sidelong glance and let out a sigh. “Something at work. I don’t suppose you’d understand.”

“Hm.” Crowley crossed his legs. “Try me. My job’s not that different, y’know. Apart from being the opposite.”

“Well, you’ve never had any trouble with it,” said Aziraphale. Crowley wasn’t what Aziraphale would have expected of a demon, but he had always seemed to be something of a natural at it, except for the part where would sometimes sit down to talk to an angel instead of killing him or running away. “You’re always bragging about those commendations they send you. The Spanish Inquisition, wasn’t it, and the Reign of Terror—”

Crowley tensed and made an odd, suppressed snorting sound that might have been laughter. “You thought I actually did all those things? You thought I orchestrated decades of class conflict in France just to get your head cut off?”

“Why else would you have been there?”

“So my bosses thought I did,” he said, lowering his voice. He pressed one hand to his stomach, grinning and trying to stifle laughter. “M’just in the right place at the right time.”

Aziraphale blinked. “You’ve been lying in your reports?”

“Well, they assume a lot, downstairs. I tell them all how great I am, and then oh, look, something awful just happened on Earth. Crowley’s on Earth, too. Job well done, Crowley.” He caught the way Aziraphale was staring at him and cleared his throat. “I mean, I do real work too, course. Could probably cause a Reign of Terror if I really wanted.”

Aziraphale lowered his gaze to the ground and went over the past few decades of tireless work in his head. It all seemed monstrously unfair.

“Bet you could get away with stretching the truth a little, too,” said Crowley, who seemed to be following his train of thought. “Y’know, talk yourself up. Thought that was your plan when you said you were gonna find a way to stay on Earth. Didn’t think you’d, er.”

Didn’t think he’d what? Actually start taking his job seriously?

“Just seems a little excessive, is all,” said Crowley. “Thought your lot was at least allowed to enjoy things on Earth. How else d’you even manage to care about human souls?”

Aziraphale hadn’t thought about it like that before. He _had_ enjoyed Earth quite a lot, he remembered suddenly, back when he still let himself. This was the only place they had books, for one thing, and the heavenly choir might be perfect, but the symphonies down here were so much more personal and moving. How had he forgotten how much he liked it here? And they had been going to promote him to a post upstairs, where he’d never again eat one of those cherry cakes from the corner bakery…Well, that bakery had closed, and he’d sworn off eating, but…

His stomach growled at the thought, and he put a hand over it like that would stifle the noise. He glanced sheepishly at Crowley, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

He had. His eyebrows rose. “You eaten lunch yet?”

“Er.” Aziraphale gave a nervous laugh. “I don’t really…”

“‘Cause I haven’t,” said Crowley, getting to his feet. “I passed a café on the way here with some decent-looking sandwiches. What d’you think?”

Aziraphale struggled to resist the idea. “I-I’m sure you’d like it if I gave into gluttony, wouldn’t you,” he said weakly.

“On the contrary. Last thing I need’s an energized and well-fed angel running around thwarting my wiles,” said Crowley. “Hm. More I think about it, more I think I might change my mind. You’d better decide quick.”

When you put it like that, Aziraphale basically had a moral imperative to accept the lunch offer. That was all the permission he needed. “I could really use a sandwich,” he admitted, and got to his feet. “Lead the way, please.”


	10. 1941 A.D., London

Crowley thought he might have recognized a familiar beige blur on the sidewalk, but he was going so fast that he had to circle the block again to be sure. The second time around, he stopped the car, rolled down the window, and punched the horn.

Aziraphale jumped about three feet, winced, and looked around. Crowley thought the angel might have brightened a little to see him, but he saw a moment later that the expression had been irritation. “I could have dropped my scones, Crowley,” he complained, holding up a brown paper bag.

“Forget your scones for a sec,” said Crowley. “Aren’t going to say anything about my car?”

The angel looked a little confused. “What am I meant to be saying about it?”

Crowley sighed impatiently. He should have known the angel wouldn’t appreciate the Bentley. “Nevermind, then. Where’re you—”

Several car horns interrupted him. Aziraphale winced. “Crowley, you’re—”

He didn’t hear the rest of the sentence over more car horns. “What?”

“You’re cutting off—” More honking. “—Cutting off traffic,” Aziraphale finished, gesturing to the line of cars forced to swerve into the oncoming lane to avoid Crowley.

Crowley shrugged to show that he didn’t care. “Where’re you headed? D’you and your scones—” Someone else honked, and he turned around to yell, “Oi, sod off, would you?”

“What about me and my scones?” Aziraphale asked a little defensively. It was still fairly recent that he had returned to eating scones and other sweets. He had regained most of the weight he’d lost, thank hell, but was still thinner than Crowley remembered him being before his fifty-year fast, and the last thing he wanted to do was scare him away from carbs again. It wasn’t natural for angels to lose weight like that.

“Want a lift?” Crowley shouted, giving up on getting out any sentences longer than a few words.

“If it will make you move your car out of—” He was interrupted by another round of honks. “—Then fine.”

Aziraphale and his scones got into the car. Crowley waited in case he’d be more impressed by the car from the inside. He wasn’t. “Where’re you headed, then?”

Aziraphale told him the intersection, and Crowley’s eyebrows rose. So he’d moved back to Soho. He always did seem to like that neighborhood. “Right,” he said, and punched the accelerator.

Crowley usually loved rocketing around London at reckless speeds, but Aziraphale’s reactions made it at least twice as fun this time. Five minutes later, Crowley stopped the car where Aziraphale had told him to, and the angel gasped and clutched at his chest dramatically. “Have we stopped?” he asked, his eyes squeezed shut as they had been for most of the drive. “Am I dead?”

Crowley fought down laughter. The scar in his stomach throbbed where he tensed from the effort. “Not dead. You’re welcome. Safe and sound here at—” He glanced up at the building he’d parked in front of, stopped, and raised his sunglasses to get a better look. “Hey, you reopened it!”

Aziraphale looked up at the _A.Z. Fell and Co._ sign with a touch of pride. “I opened just last year. The books were getting quite dusty all locked up. It’s meant to help with my cover as a human,” he added. “They all have jobs, you see, so it makes sense.”

That was probably what he’d told his bosses, but it was clear he’d missed having a bookshop. “Looks just like the old one,” Crowley said, a little jokingly, because it _had_ been over a hundred years.

“I did have to relocate,” said Aziraphale. “There’s not quite as much space as the other one, but it serves.” He gathered up his scones, paused for a moment, and looked at Crowley. “Would you, er, like to come in?”

Crowley blinked. He and Aziraphale had been getting more familiar lately, occasionally going to lunch or taking a walk around the park when they bumped into each other, and sometimes even going so far as to plan something ahead of time if one of them had business to discuss. Neither of them had ever been in the other’s home.

“I don’t really do books,” he said, in case Aziraphale thought he was going to start perusing the shelves.

“I wouldn’t have invited you if I thought you were going to try reading them,” said Aziraphale with a huff. “I have a few bottles of scotch in the back, and I thought maybe we could catch up…?”

The scones really must have put him in a good mood. Well, Crowley wasn’t one to turn down alcohol, so he put the Bentley in park and followed Aziraphale up to the door. This bookshop was even more cramped and disorganized than the last one. Crowley edged between the shelves and tottering stacks of books that apparently wouldn’t fit on them. Aziraphale led him into a room in the back and busied himself with the scotch. There was one armchair, and a desk in the corner that didn’t look very comfortable. Crowley wasn’t sure where he was meant to sit. He miracled himself up a black chaise lounge and hoped Aziraphale wouldn’t mind. “So,” he said, sitting, or more accurately, sprawling. “Catch up…?”

“Actually,” Aziraphale admitted. “I really wanted an excuse to open this bottle.”

The cork popped off. Crowley wondered if, now that the bottle was open, he ought to leave.

“Had a rather, er, eventful week,” said Aziraphale with a dry chuckle. “But it’s never quite the same drinking alone, is it?”

That didn’t sound good. Crowley accepted the glass Aziraphale handed him. “What was so eventful?”

Aziraphale looked ruefully at one of the bookshelves near him. Crowley noticed with a start that there was an empty stretch of shelf there. “I, er. Well, I managed to nearly get myself discorporated again, for a start.”

The “nearly” was something, at least. Crowley sipped the scotch and waited for him to go on.

“There were these Nazis,” he said. “I was working with a British spy, only she turned out to not be British after all, and with all the double-crossing and trying not to get shot…” he sighed. “I lost some very valuable books. All of my first-edition books of prophecy. Mother Shipton, Ottwell Bins…” He looked down in grief. “Nostradamus _signed_ that copy.”

“M’sorry to hear it,” mumbled Crowley. He really was, but he was a bit more interested in the part of the story that involved double agents and gunfire. “Er, what happened, again…?”

Aziraphale went back and explained in more detail. “That was on Tuesday,” he said. “I don’t know yet if upstairs has noticed I miracled myself out of the situation.” He glanced furtively at the ceiling like they might hear.

“Yeah, to save yourself. Last thing you need’s another discorporation.” Crowley took another sip of scotch. “How many times did you say you’d…?”

Aziraphale had never actually told him that, but he sighed and muttered. “Four.”

Crowley winced as his scar ached again. He couldn’t even imagine having four of them. Trying to keep his voice light, he said, “Do any of them make good stories, at least? You never did tell me why you were in Paris.”

“Oh, that.” Aziraphale turned bright red and looked away. “That, er. It’s not very interesting.”

It took half the bottle of scotch for Crowley to wheedle the truth out of him. Then he just sat and stared at him for a moment. “ _Crepes?_ ”

“The first time was pretty soon after the beginning,” said Aziraphale a bit later. “Hadn’t quite gotten the hang of a corporation yet. Didn’t really understand they could get damaged, and, you know.” He looked a little embarrassed. “Forgot I didn’t have my wings out.”

Crowley chuckled, gritting his teeth against the stab in his gut when he did so. “What?” he said in response to Aziraphale’s glare. “It is a little funny.”

“Second time,” said Aziraphale, when they’d finished the bottle, “Was after the Great Flood. Turns out the animals were a lot more eager to get out of the ark than I expected. Wrong place, wrong time.”

Crowley had never gotten the memo about what was happening with that, so the conversation went off on a tangent about why Noah needed the ark in the first place, and eventually Aziraphale got uncomfortable with all the theological questions Crowley was raising and changed the subject. He also opened another bottle and started to slur a little.

“The third time,” he said, “was in Persia, back when the Sasa…hm…Sasanan…”

Crowley tried to help, but there were so many S’s that he ended up hissing and spitting uselessly.

“Sasanids,” said Aziraphale triumphantly. “When they were in charge.” He chuckled. “Now _that’s_ a story.”

The story occupied them for most of the rest of the bottle. By the end, Crowley was laughing and simultaneously cringing at the familiar pain in his stomach. “S’a lot of times,” he said. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Not f’r long,” said Aziraphale. “Most of mine’ve been pretty quick. Didn’t feel a thing with the guilloto…Guillo…” He made a chopping motion with one hand.

“Nah, I mean after. Like—” Crowley looked up and frowned. He had never noticed before that Aziraphale didn’t have a scar around his neck where he’d been beheaded. “Hang on, y’don’t have a…a line.” He dragged a finger across his own throat, and then remembered that that meant something else. “Like here, see,” he said, pulling up his shirt to show the hideous purple-red scar around his middle. “Why don’t you have—”

Aziraphale sucked in a breath, his eyes growing wide. “Oh, no. Wassat from?”

“Discorporated,” said Crowley.

“They didn’t give you a new…a new…new one?”

“Nah, they did. Came with this soon as they put me in it.”

Aziraphale slid off his chair and crawled over to get a closer look, his expression a mix of horror and morbid fascination. “Wha’ happened?”

“Tried to talk to some angel. Not you,” he clarified. “Rude one. Cut me in half ‘fore she even said hello.”

“When was this?”

“Uh, Beginning. Right at Eden.”

“The, the flaming swords—Oh,” Aziraphale whispered, covering his mouth with one hand. He had turned pale. “Oh, no.”

His other hand moved as if to touch the scar seemingly without him realizing what he was doing. Crowley recoiled from his hand. “Don’t—”

Aziraphale looked up at him, now fully horrified. “Does it still hurt?”

Crowley shrugged. “Off ‘n’ on,”

“It’s been hurting you all this time?” His voice was high. He looked so panicked and guilt-ridden that Crowley might have believed he had done it himself.

“S’alright,” said Crowley, pulling his shirt back down to cover the scar. “Been a long time. Used to it by now.”

Aziraphale grabbed his wrist to stop him. “Hang on,” he said, reaching with the other hand. “Maybe I can—”

Before Crowley realized what he was doing, Aziraphale lightly touched his fingertips to the scar. Crowley flinched, and then his eyes widened as the pain started to ebb away. The scar lightened from angry purple-red to pink, then to white, and then faded completely. The warped skin smoothed over, and it was like there had never been a scar there at all.

Crowley’s throat was dry. He touched the place where the scar had been and felt not so much as a trace of pain. He couldn’t even remember the last time it hadn’t hurt to touch his stomach. Heart pounding, he looked up at Aziraphale.

“There you are,” said the angel, with a pleased smile. He patted Crowley’s stomach and sat back on the floor. “Not a scratch. Good as new.”

At the last few words, he looked up to meet Crowley’s eyes, and his smile vanished. Realization of what he’d done filled his eyes all at once, and he scurried back to his chair. “Oh—oh dear,” he said, looking everywhere but at Crowley. “I’m sorry—”

“You’re _sssorry?_ ”

Aziraphale swallowed and shook his head. “I don’t know what possessed me—I-I’m very drunk, I think—”

Crowley was feeling a lot less drunk than he had a second ago. He pulled his shirt back down, one hand still idly touching the miraculously smooth part of his stomach. He felt like he should thank the angel, but it didn’t seem sufficient. It also didn’t look like Aziraphale would accept his thanks if he offered it.

“I-I should go,” said Crowley, his face burning.

Aziraphale nodded. “Y-yes, quite right.”

“Getting, er, late—”

“—Didn’t mean to keep you.”

Neither of them looked at the other as they both made their excuses and hurriedly sobered up. Crowley grabbed his hat, said something about “good alcohol,” and spun out the door. He sprinted to the Bentley and jumped inside, breathing hard once the door was shut. He ran a hand over his stomach again, hardly able to believe what had just happened. The scar was gone. Really gone. He let out a tiny laugh of disbelief.

It didn’t hurt anymore to laugh.

His eyes wide, he looked back up toward the lighted windows of the bookshop. He should have said thank you. He should have said _something._ What did you do, when your enemy, who felt more like a friend, healed you of a six-thousand-year-old injury, and plainly regretted it afterwards?

He didn’t know. Maybe something would come to him. In the meantime, he started the car and drove back to his flat.

It must have been the alcohol that made Aziraphale do it, because sober, he knew exactly how dangerous it was to heal a demon. If someone upstairs looked a little too closely at his miracle log—Could he, maybe, perform a bunch of other miracles to bury the evidence of that one? They would probably reprimand him again, but that was better than if they found out that he was frien—Acquainted…? That he sometimes talked to a demon without trying to smite him. Or that he had healed one.

The problem was that he kept forgetting Crowley was a demon. He certainly didn’t act like an enemy, and the two of them had been getting too familiar recently. Maybe Aziraphale should stop…Or should he? But he…Well, no, he didn’t _like_ Crowley, obviously…

He definitely didn’t like the idea of Crowley in pain.

But that wound had been given to him by an angel, which meant it must have been justified. If Crowley had said he was only trying to talk to the angel, he was obviously lying. He must have done something to set her off. Aziraphale couldn’t imagine Crowley getting violent, but he was a demon, so he must have that side of himself hidden somewhere.

And then there was the issue of the flaming sword, which Aziraphale hadn’t known could damage souls like that and which he had completely lost track of. It was dangerous, too dangerous to have just handed over to Adam and Eve like he had. Aziraphale had tried to track it down a couple of times, but to no end. Who knew where that sword was now, or whether some witch or demon hunter hadn’t made use of it against other angels or demons…

He couldn’t stop thinking about it, and he couldn’t work out how to feel about the whole thing. Did he regret healing his enemy? He probably should. He tried to, except then he would remember all the times he’d seen Crowley clutch his stomach as he tried to suppress laughter, and wonder how he had never noticed that something was hurting him terribly.

Well, it had happened, and there was no taking it back at this point. He just needed to make sure nothing like that happened again. He should probably try to reduce his association with Crowley. There wasn’t any reason for them to keep talking. There hadn’t really ever been.

About a month after the incident, Aziraphale found a package on the doorstep of the shop. Puzzled, he took it inside and unwrapped the paper to find a small stack of books. His eyes widened, when he read the titles. Nostradamus, Mother Shipton, Robert Nixon…

They were copies of the books he’d lost to the Nazis.

Aziraphale let out a little yelp and spread them all out so he could get a good look at them. Only a few of them were first editions, and not all of his lost books were represented, but the intention was clear. When he lifted the last book from the brown paper wrapping, a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. It was a single word cut from the headline of a newspaper: _Thanks._

Aziraphale’s throat convulsed. He suddenly felt horrible for dithering so long about whether healing Crowley had been right. It didn’t seem like a fair exchange. Aziraphale had done one miracle, and he might not have even done it if he’d been sober. It wasn’t _thoughtful._

Maybe he shouldn’t accept the books. It would feel like being indebted to a demon, which wasn’t a position he wanted to be in. Except the reverse of that was probably why Crowley had sent them in the first place.

Aziraphale stood and looked at the books for a long time. Then he tucked the message of thanks into the front cover of _Les Prophéties,_ gathered all the books into his arms, and took them into the back room to shelve them where the old ones had been. They might not be as monetarily valuable as the old ones, but he was just as loathe to part with them.


	11. 1967 A.D., London

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The years and the events that happen in them are getting less and less related to what happens in the show, but we'll start the apocalypse soon so that should be fun.

Aziraphale pretended not to notice Crowley as he slid into his usual spot on the other side of the park bench. “Crowley,” he said, without looking at him, like that would keep passersby from noticing their rendezvous.

“Afternoon, angel,” said Crowley. “How’re the ducks today?”

Aziraphale tossed out a few more bread crumbs and watched the birds hurry to snap them up. “They’re, er, ducks. Same as usual, I suppose.” He risked a glance at the demon. “You said you wanted to discuss something?”

They hadn’t spoken much since Aziraphale had healed him. Aziraphale didn’t know what to say about it, and Crowley didn’t seem to either, so they mostly pretended it hadn’t happened. They were still on good terms, though. They still exchanged conversation when they happened to bump into each other, it just seemed to happen less often now. Maybe Crowley was busier.

“Yeah, so,” said Crowley. “I’ve been thinking. Working against each other all the time seems like a bit of a waste of effort.”

Aziraphale cast him another sidelong glance. If he was suggesting again that they both stop working, he might as well leave right now. “Well, that’s what our jobs entail.”

“Eh, not necessarily,” said Crowley. “We’re just meant to be saving souls for each of our sides, right?”

“Our _opposing_ sides, yes,” said Aziraphale pointedly.

“Yeah, I just mean we don’t have to be tripping each other up all the time,” said Crowley. “Cancelling each other out. I was thinking, what if we just stayed out of each other’s way? We’d both still be doing our jobs, neither of our bosses can fault us, and we’d probably be a lot more productive.”

He had a point, Aziraphale had to admit, although increased productivity didn’t seem to mean much when your enemy was also getting more done. He would have more to report to the archangels, though. “I suppose…it would maintain the same balance,” he said slowly. “I don’t think it would do any harm.”

“Right,” said Crowley. “Plus, I was thinking we might help each other out a little. Say you’re heading over to Ireland for a blessing or something, maybe you could handle a temptation for me while you’re there to save me the trip. I’d do the same, of course, deal with a few of your good deeds…”

“You want me to help with your demonic assignments?” Aziraphale interrupted, alarmed. Turning a blind eye was one thing (and he’d gone nearly six millennia without smiting Crowley), but if one of the archangels discovered that he had actually helped the enemy’s cause—

“Just here and there,” said Crowley. “Be more convenient for both of—”

“No!” Aziraphale almost shouted, startling some of the ducks. “No,” he said more quietly. “Certainly not. I will _not_ sully my hands with evil work.”

“Sully your—? I’m not gonna make you kill anyone, or anything like that,” said Crowley. “Some low-grade evil, a few minor inconveniences. And I said I’d do some of your work, too. Keep the same balance, like you said. It’d just be making things easier on both of us. If we’ve both got assignments in Ireland at the same time, there’s no point in both of us going.”

“Why is Ireland your example? That’s not exactly prohibitively far.”

Crowley cringed awkwardly. “M’not really, er, welcome in Ireland anymore…”

“I don’t see how that is my problem.” Aziraphale turned away and tossed some more breadcrumbs to the ducks.

Crowley sighed, frustrated. “How about I sweeten the deal. We could pool our resources—”

“This conversation is over, Crowley.”

“No, listen. My resources happen to include a vast, secret army. I’m sure you could see the use of that. And I just might be willing to share, if—”

“I said no,” Aziraphale insisted. “And for your information, I already have one.”

That caught Crowley by surprise. “You’ve got a secret army?”

“I do.” Aziraphale straightened. “An immense, righteous army for the forces of light.”

“Just seems an awfully big coincidence, is all.”

“It’s true!” Aziraphale almost rattled off the names of the top officers of the Witchfinder Army, just to prove his point, but remembered that it was supposed to be secret and stopped himself. “I do not need help, and certainly not from a demon.” He got to his feet and hesitated. “I’ll agree to stay out of your way,” he added in a less harsh tone, “if you will stay out of mine. But I will _not_ lend a hand to hell’s schemes.”

Crowley gave a frustrated scowl. “You angels are so bloody unreasonable.”

“ _I’m_ unreasonable—?”

“Yeah, you are,” said Crowley, his voice rising. “What’s gonna happen, if we swap a few assignments? The same amount gets done, and nobody ever has to know.”

That wasn’t a risk Aziraphale wanted to take. He had already given away his flaming sword, left a demon alive for millennia, shared meals and drinks with said demon, actually _healed_ him—

“I wouldn’t get you in trouble, Aziraphale,” said Crowley, as if he’d read the angel’s mind.

“You’re a demon,” said Aziraphale. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“I just wouldn’t!”

That wasn’t the point, anyway. It was about doing the right thing, and even if someone was going to be doing the wrong one anyway, Aziraphale wanted to be the one doing the former. It was his purpose. “It’s the principle of the thing,” he said haughtily. “Not that I’d expect you to understand. Good afternoon.”

“Fine,” said Crowley sulkily.

“Fine!” Aziraphale shot back, tossed the rest of his bread to the ducks, and stalked away in a huff. The absolute _nerve._ Didn’t Crowley realize how much trouble he’d already caused Aziraphale? How lucky he was that Aziraphale didn’t just smite him each time they met? Their…acquaintanceship (one might even have said “friendship,” if that one weren’t Aziraphale) was already dangerous enough, and now Crowley wanted to make it even riskier just to save a few trips to Ireland?

He almost wished he’d never met Crowley. He’d be safer, then. He wouldn’t have repeated instances of failing to smite a demon on his record (not that anyone knew about that yet), and he’d probably have a much easier time of staying on task, and…Well, those awful fifty years in the nineteenth century would have gone on a lot longer, and he wouldn’t have anyone to swap work stories with…

He glanced back. Crowley was still sitting on the bench watching the ducks. Maybe he’d been a little harsh.

_No._ He shook himself and turned to face forward again. That “arrangement” the demon had proposed was too dangerous. He simply couldn’t risk it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland and Crowley never felt safe enough to go back


	12. 2008 A.D., London

“Shit.” Crowley’s hands were sweating against the Bentley’s steering wheel. The backseat, which had been ominously occupied moments before, was now even more ominously vacant. He could feel the empty space all the way in the driver’s seat. He’d just put something out into the world that he wouldn’t be able to take back. “ _Shit._ ”

He wished he’d tossed the basket out of the moving car onto the highway when he’d had the chance. Crowley didn’t relish the idea of killing babies, but with most babies it wasn’t a get-them-before-they-get-you situation. That boy was a time bomb, and Crowley had just lit the fuse. Did time bombs have fuses? He wasn’t well-versed in different types of explosives.

He felt sick. He slammed the accelerator deeper into the floor. The whole bloody world—

The worst part was that he couldn’t do anything about it. Sure, he could have just chucked the kid into the path of an oncoming vehicle, but then hell would have figured it out and he’d spend the rest of eternity in unspeakable pain in the Bottomless Pit. Plus, it didn’t seem like killing the antichrist was something that would be allowed. Another one would probably just spawn to take his place. Crowley might be able to buy the Earth eleven years, at most, at the expense of the rest of his life.

He cursed some more and slammed his head into the steering wheel a few times. It might not have been so bad if all he’d had to do was drop the kid off at the hospital, but now they wanted him to oversee the boy’s childhood. He’d be the one showing him how to crush all life on Earth to dust under his heel, and then he’d have to watch him do it and think, _I taught him that._ It was supposed to make him proud. It wouldn’t.

Hell had never given him anything this important before, so he had never had more attention on him. He couldn’t try anything, he would never get far—

What would he have done, anyway? He doubted killing the boy would achieve anything other than pissing off his dad. Raise him right, maybe? Drill it into him the idea that, whatever the voices in his head might be telling him, he must not destroy the Earth? Would that even work?

Would they need Crowley to oversee his upbringing if it wouldn’t?

His mind turned the idea over a few times, and then he forced it out. This line of thought wasn’t productive. They’d be watching him. His hands were tied.

He’d need an accomplice.

It was so obvious that he didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it immediately. Aziraphale liked Earth as much as Crowley did. Surely he wouldn’t want the humans to die, and considering that Crowley was still walking around in one piece, he probably wasn’t that invested in the war between heaven and hell. And as an angel, he’d be perfectly suited to fill the kid’s head with the sort of upstanding morals that would keep him from fulfilling his purpose. Crowley had a sudden vivid mental image of Aziraphale standing the midst of burning wreckage, facing down a terrifying beast with a disapproving glare and saying something like, _Young man, what did I tell you about causing the apocalypse?_ He had to laugh.

Then the laughter evaporated. Aziraphale would have to agree to his plan first, and the angel hadn’t exactly been receptive to his ideas recently. Plus, Armageddon was as much heaven’s plan as it was hell’s, and he’d heard the way the angel talked about the “ineffable divine plan” when he told him about the great flood. Would he be willing to act against said plan if the entire world was at stake?

Crowley thought about Aziraphale’s outburst in response to what Crowley had thought was a perfectly reasonable arrangement, and Aziraphale starving himself for half a century to be closer to what he thought a good angel was supposed to be, and he didn’t think so.

He swerved sharply as the road bent, and thought for a moment. Aziraphale would probably object if he knew exactly what was going on. So maybe Crowley could just…not tell him.

Aziraphale gave up trying to focus on reading, set down his book, and started to pace. His fingertips brushed the spines of his books as he walked past the shelves, and he wondered how much longer he’d have them for. It seemed much too soon for everything to be ending already, even if it had been six thousand years. He’d always expected that, when the time came, it would feel a bit more like Earth was over. Humanity would run its course, and then once they were through everything would be wrapped up in a nice neat bow. This felt more like stopping a play in the middle of a line of dialogue and then setting the theater on fire.

And Crowley was involved. How was Crowley involved? Had he set the whole thing in motion? That didn’t sound like him. Should he ask? Crowley probably wouldn’t give him an honest answer. (Crowley had never lied to him.) They were on opposite sides, and pretty soon their sides were going to fight one another. He swallowed, hoping he wouldn’t have to face Crowley on the other side of the battlefield. He didn’t want to smite him now any more than he ever had. Quite the opposite, in fact.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts, and he frowned. It was the middle of the night. Surely it was obvious that the shop was closed?

He opened the door and found Crowley standing there, looking a little frantic. “I need a favor,” he said, before Aziraphale had time to open his mouth. “But you can’t ask why.”

Aziraphale frowned. As if that wasn’t going to make him suspicious, after what he’d just heard from Gabriel. “What’s the favor?”

Crowley swallowed. He seemed to be rather worked up. “I need you to thwart me.”

“How is that a favor?”

“I can’t explain. You won’t get in trouble, if you’re worried about that. Just a thwarting. Your lot can’t do anything but approve of that.” He looked a little desperate. “Please.”

Aziraphale swallowed. Crowley was involved in the plan for Armageddon, and he was asking an angel to interrupt his plans…But what if he was just tricking Aziraphale, and this was part of hell’s plan to destroy the world after all? Not that Aziraphale could interfere in that case. She had planned it all out, right? But he couldn’t be seen helping the opposition. Though if Crowley was trying to rope him into working for hell, surely he wouldn’t have directly framed it as a thwarting. In the other case, if he did in fact want Aziraphale to try to stop him from causing Armageddon, obviously Aziraphale couldn’t agree…Well, but he hadn’t actually _said_ …

“This favor,” said Aziraphale cautiously. “Is this, ah, work-related? Something to help your side?”

Crowley shook his head. “This is entirely selfish.”

Aziraphale opened the door wider. “Let’s talk inside.”


	13. 2015 A.D., London

“So then,” Aziraphale went on, gasping with laughter, “he says, ‘I thought you told me to have love for all living things,’ and I said, ‘I didn’t really mean that on a personal level,’ and meanwhile the squirrel’s somehow gotten onto the ceiling fan—”

Crowley threw her head against the back of the armchair she’d summoned, laughing so hard she nearly spilled her wine. It felt good to be able to laugh like that without pain shooting through her stomach. She was doing it more and more now that she and Aziraphale were seeing so much of each other. She had known the angel was funny, but hadn’t quite realized the full extent of it.

“So I get a broom to try and coax it down,” Aziraphale went on, “And Warlock decides to try turning on the fan—”

“He turned on the—?”

“He did! The poor creature was hanging on for dear life—I turned it off almost at once, but then I couldn’t figure out any other way to get it down, so—”

“You didn’t, angel!”

“On the lowest setting! The lowest setting! And we had a basket ready to catch him, but, well.” He looked over to the door, where the remains of his poor shredded hat hung on a hook. “He was spinning quite a lot at that point, and I missed.”

Crowley was shrieking with laughter now, and this time she did spill her wine. “No wonder you needed a drink.”

“That’s not the end of it.”

Crowley looked up in disbelief. “It’s not?”

“No.” There was a glint in Aziraphale’s eye which usually appeared when he knew he had something hilarious to say. “When we finally had the squirrel in the basket, and clapped the lid on, Warlock—Our Warlock, who, moments ago, you may recall, had invited the squirrel inside to feed it strawberries—he looked at me and asked if we might, and this is a direct quote, ‘sacrifice it to our dark lord and master.’”

Crowley was in hysterics. She pounded her fist on the arm of the chair a few times and had to wipe moisture from her eyes. “Great kid,” she wheezed when she could finally draw enough breath to speak. “Never been prouder. What’d you say?”

“I didn’t know _what_ to say! I must have stared at him for a solid five minutes, and then I told him, no, we certainly shan’t, and I’m afraid I may have said some rather unkind words about you for having put such concepts into his head.”

“No hard feelings,” said Crowley, waving a hand. She’d said some things to Warlock about Aziraphale, too. The poor kid must be awfully confused.

Aziraphale picked up the wine bottle. “Top-up? You seem to have lost most of yours.”

Crowley miracled away the wine stain on the rug and held out her glass so Aziraphale could refill it. “Do you think either of us are making any headway with him?”

“Not really.”

“That’s a relief.” Crowley sipped the wine.

“You’re supposed to let it breathe, you know.”

Crowley took a longer drink, just to see Aziraphale’s look of mild irritation.

“This is a very good vintage, Crowley,” he said, looking put out. “If I’d known you weren’t going to appreciate it properly—”

“This _is_ how I appreciate alcohol.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes and swirled his own glass instead.

Crowley took yet another sip to hide her grin. This had been a good plan. She’d get to save the world, and spend more time with Aziraphale while she was at it. She’d always liked the angel well enough (mostly because Aziraphale didn’t kill her, which was admittedly a low bar), but now that they were getting to know each other a little better she found that he was a lot of fun to be around. She started thinking about the episode with the squirrel and started laughing again.

“What?” asked Aziraphale.

Crowley gestured vaguely to Aziraphale’s shredded hat, still chuckling. “‘Sacrifice it to our dark lord and master’—Heh—”

“Honestly, the things he has learned from you.” Aziraphale shook his head. “You’re a terrible influence on the boy.”

“S’my job.”

“I can still disapprove.”

“Well, that’s your job.” Crowley’s laughter petered out and she glanced around the little hut for a moment. Something else Aziraphale had said came back to her, and she frowned. “Did you call him ‘ours’?”

“Sorry?”

“Warlock. You said ‘our Warlock’ a minute ago. Y’know he’s not actually…” If Aziraphale was getting attached to the boy, that was going to be a problem. Crowley was having trouble preventing it herself. It was tricky, when he was so small and helpless, to remember that he had the power to unmake Creation.

“W-well of course,” said Aziraphale, turning a light shade of pink. “I misspoke. I just meant, to distinguish him from other Warlocks, he’s the one we’re both familiar with. Of course he’s the Dowlings’ boy.”

“Satan’s, more like,” Crowley muttered, and took another sip of wine.

Aziraphale tensed and shut his eyes. “You haven’t told me that part yet.”

Crowley stopped for a moment and then set down her glass. “Yet,” she repeated. Aziraphale had figured it out, then. It had been two years, and she had expected it to happen eventually. She just didn’t understand why he looked so panicked now that it was out in the open.

Aziraphale opened his eyes and stared straight ahead without looking at anything. Then he downed the entirety of his wine, refilled the glass, and put that away too.

“What’re you doing?”

“Drinking to forget,” he said simply, and emptied the rest of the bottle into his glass.

Crowley wasn’t sure how to react. “I thought for sure you’d have figured it out by now.”

Aziraphale hesitated. “But you never _told_ me.”

“But you did know?”

“I…” To avoid answering, Aziraphale finished his glass.

What on Earth was he trying to accomplish? He’d already known, or at least suspected, that he was acting against the Great Plan. All that had changed was that he now had hard proof. “You can’t just pretend I didn’t say anything?”

“But you did say something. I heard it.”

“No one needs to know what I said.”

“But _I_ know, Crowley,” he said stubbornly, and got wobblily to his feet. “Lessee, perhaps I have something a little stronger in here somewhere…”

Crowley opened his mouth to warn Aziraphale that he was going to destroy his liver if he kept this up, and then remembered that neither of them had livers. She watched, puzzled, as Aziraphale stumbled around and rummaged through his cabinets, and then something clicked. “Have you been lying to yourself this whole time?”

Aziraphale turned around sharply, and the movement almost toppled him over. “I’m not—No—No,” he said, grabbing onto a bookshelf for support. “I dunno what you mean.”

He really had. Crowley would have laughed if it hadn’t been so sad. Was he really that terrified of his bosses? Crowley opened her mouth to argue with him, and then stopped herself. It had never done any good before, and now that the entire world was at stake, she couldn’t risk running the angel off. She needed his help. “It was a joke,” she tried. “Y’know, like, ‘haha, this kid is such a handful, he must be the antichrist!’ People make jokes like that all the time. S’all it was.”

Aziraphale looked at him doubtfully, popped the top of a whiskey bottle, and chugged it straight.

“You’re just thwarting my plans, right?” Crowley added, a little desperately. “Doing your job.”

Instead of answering, Aziraphale shot a terrified glance upwards, still drinking straight from the whiskey bottle.

“Oh, come on,” said Crowley, getting impatient. “You wouldn’t be trying to drink away the memory if you didn’t want to help out. You know what’s at stake here.”

“I’m an _angel,_ said Aziraphale stubbornly, after he finally finished the bottle, winced heavily, and miracled it into nonexistance. “I can’t interfere. Er…knowingly.”

“You _did_ know.”

“I certainly didn’t!” Aziraphale’s eyes got that shifty look that they always did when he lied. “How would I have known? You never told me—Whoa—” His knees started to give way under him and he gripped the bookshelf harder.

“For fuck’s sake,” Crowley muttered, and got up to help him back to the sofa. “Fine. You wanna drink up all the alcohol you own? Fine, if that’s what you need to do to stay in denial.”

“Good.” Aziraphale looked around on the table. “Hang on, the alcohol’s not here…”

With a sigh, Crowley snapped her fingers, and bottles of all manner of hard liquor manifested on the table. “Knock yourself out,” she said, sobering up and going to the door. “I’m not gonna stick around and watch this.”

“G’night,” called Aziraphale.

The door shut behind Crowley, and she tramped across the Dowlings’ garden back towards the house. Goddamn _angels._ What the heaven did they do to him up there, to make him like this? And why did nothing Crowley said ever help untangle him from it?

She knew why. She was the Enemy. Aziraphale would never listen to her.

And somehow, even when Aziraphale was helping save the Earth by actively working against her, he needed to be neck-deep in denial to even consider the idea. Why couldn’t he just be reasonable? Why was he so afraid to think for himself? The worst they could do was make him Fall, and Crowley had survived that, not that she thought it was likely to happen to Aziraphale anytime soon. If he would just let Crowley talk to him normally, without four layers of self-deception involved—

But he wouldn’t, and there wasn’t time for him to work through his millennia-old issues before Armageddon. Crowley glanced backwards at the little hut and hoped the angel had enough alcohol to erase his memory.

Aziraphale handed in his resignation as the Dowlings’ gardener the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You construct intricate rituals to work against the Divine Plan


	14. 2019 A.D., London (Wednesday)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a few more chapters left! I promise I'm not going to rewrite the entire book, just a few important scenes that would change (you may have noticed, for example, that Crowley doesn't have holy water in this timeline)

Crowley stared dully at his watch as it counted down the last few seconds to 3 p.m. This was it. The moment he’d been working towards for the past eleven years. In a few seconds, the hellhound would appear, and Crowley would find out whether all his hard work had been worth it, and whether the Earth might make it after all.

He wasn’t hopeful.

After Aziraphale had left, he tried everything he could think of to find someone else to oppose his evil influence on the boy. He managed to get a tutor hired for Warlock who seemed like she’d be a good influence, a kindly woman who knitted scarves for the homeless and volunteered at an animal shelter on the weekends. She turned out to be nothing at all like Aziraphale, in that Crowley could barely stand to be around her. He found himself venting about her goody-two-shoes act sometimes within Warlock’s hearing, and then the kid started to laugh and make fun of her as well, which was funny until Crowley realized it was exactly what he didn’t want to happen. And then the tutor went and told the Dowlings that she thought Warlock’s nanny was a bad influence on him, and they fired Crowley. He had to get himself re-hired under a different disguise. This had happened four times.

It didn’t seem to do much good finding people to help raise Warlock who were only angels in the metaphorical sense. None of them took Warlock’s interest in destroying the Earth seriously enough. Oh, they were definitely concerned—When the Dowlings finally took Warlock to see a counselor, Crowley got fired for the third time—but of course none of them thought he could actually do it. This meant that nobody actually put in the time to persuade Warlock that he should not destroy the Earth.

Twice, Crowley crept into Warlock’s room at night with a pillow in his hands to take more decisive and drastic action. Both times he slunk away in shame after looking down at the sleeping boy for a minute or so. He couldn’t do it. Even without the threat of what hell would do to him, he had spent too long raising the boy to bring himself to harm him.

He had dedicated the last year of his employment at the Dowlings’ (this time as one of their cooks, which, since he had only been in a kitchen a handful of times, was an ordeal) to hammering the idea into Warlock’s head that, should he ever encounter an unfamiliar dog, he ought to send it away immediately, and under no circumstances should he give it a name. There had followed a week where the neighbors dogs kept mysteriously escaping from their yards and finding their way to the Dowling estate so Crowley could test whether his training had worked. It hadn’t. Warlock loved dogs.

Crowley would have thought he’d be anxious, or at least a little uneasy, as he watched the last few seconds tick by on his watch. He didn’t feel much of anything. If the Earth was going to be destroyed, he’d rather just have it confirmed so he could put his affairs in order before everything went sideways. At this point, it was all but inevitable.

Thee watch struck three, and Crowley raised his head and looked around the garden. The hellhound would be here any second.

Any second now.

…Aaaaaany second…

Crowley’s heart started to beat very fast. He looked down on the watch, which he had miracled to be perfectly on time, down to the nanosecond. A full minute passed. Then two. The dog should be here. Where was the—?

He abandoned the party and all but ran back to the Bentley. Something had gone horribly wrong.

For the past few years, Aziraphale hadn’t known what to do with himself. Trying to do anything productive seemed pointless, since everything was going to end soon anyway. It seemed like a better use of his time to enjoy all his favorite Earthly delights one last time. So he toured all his favorite bakeries in London and ate cake by the…well, the cake, and dined in all his favorite restaurants, and reread all of his favorite books one more time to commit as much of them to memory as he could. He even travelled a little, and knocked some things off his bucket list, but it was difficult to be properly in awe of the Northern Lights when you knew they were about to be snuffed them out forever. None of it helped. Sampling all his favorite things one last time only drove home how much he was going to miss it all.

The thought came to him, sometimes, that he should have just stayed and helped Crowley. The demon had had a plan, and he always seemed to know what he was doing, and maybe they could have even succeeded and saved billions of lives and kept that wonderful confectionary down on the corner in business. Crowley had given him an excuse, and everything, and it was possible that Gabriel and the others might allow him to continue thwarting this particular demonic plan even if they knew the truth about it. He could have done it.

But the moment always passed, because this was the Divine Plan, and nothing he or Crowley did was going to stop it. As it was written, so it would be. Aziraphale was already the principality who had given away his flaming sword and healed a demon. He didn’t want to add attempting and failing to stop Armageddon to the list. God knew what She was doing, and it was not his place to question. The Earth would end, and that would be that, and Aziraphale would take his rightful place in heaven once the opposition had been stamped out.

The opposition…Crowley…

Crowley was a demon. He had Fallen because of his own choices. Aziraphale might not like it, but again, it wasn’t his place to question. It wasn’t as if he could do anything about it, anyway.

Then Gabriel popped in with that vapid smile to tell him that the big day was coming up sometime this week, and as soon as he left Aziraphale had what he was pretty sure was a panic attack. The Earth couldn’t end. It was Aziraphale’s home, and lots of other people’s, too. He didn’t think he could bear being stuck in blank white heaven for the rest of eternity with celestial harmonies and _The Sound of Music_ sing-alongs, he couldn’t, he _couldn’t_ —

The phone started to ring.

The sound interrupted the storm of thoughts that hadn’t left Aziraphale alone in forty-eight hours. He hadn’t opened the shop in at least a month. He looked at the phone across the room and considered answering it, but there didn’t seem to be much point, so he let it ring on until it stopped.

It was only silent for a few seconds before it started to ring again. Aziraphale disconnected it with a snap of his fingers and turned back to the book he’d had open on his lap for about a day. He’d been staring at the words on the same page without digesting any of them.

Several minutes later, someone pounded on the door, and a familiar voice called, “Aziraphale?”

He bolted out of his chair and ran to unlock the door, trying to stifle the surge of hope that voice brought him. Had Crowley done it? Could he really have…?

He opened the door. Underneath the sunglasses and the forced swagger, Crowley was pale and tense. He looked like he might run away or fly off the handle at a moment’s notice. “Hi,” he said. “Got a bit of a problem.”

It wasn’t good news, then. Aziraphale felt a lot of things at once, too many to take stock of, and settled on regret. Maybe it was the years he’d spent preemptively mourning the loss of everything he liked on Earth, or the recent news from Gabriel that made it all too real and imminent, or maybe it was just the terrified look on Crowley’s face, but he knew now that if he could have gone back to 2015 he never would have left the Dowling estate. “I’m so sorry, Crowley,” he said in a rush. “I shouldn’t have left, I should have stayed and helped—I wanted to go back, but I was such a coward—”

“T-that’s fine,” said Crowley, looking surprised and a little embarrassed. “Really. It doesn’t matter.”

“But it does,” Aziraphale said miserably. “If I’d been there to help negate your influence on Warlock, there might have been a chance—”

“No, really, it doesn’t matter,” Crowley interrupted him. “Warlock’s not the antichrist.”

Aziraphale stopped short. He must have misheard. “I’m sorry?”

“ _Warlock is not the antichrist._ ”

That didn’t make sense. Aziraphale stared at Crowley, taking in his frantic energy and the slight cringe of embarrassment in his face. The wheels turned slowly in his head, and then finally arrived at their destination. Aziraphale shrieked, “You spent six years on the _wrong boy—_ ”

“Yeah, I know,” said Crowley, looking humiliated. “You can make fun of me later.”

“How do you lose track of the son of Satan?”

“I don’t know! It was supposed to be foolproof!”

“Where’s the real antichrist, then?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Could use any ideas you’ve got on that front, if—if you’ll let me in.” Crowley looked like he didn’t particularly expect to be let in, but thought he might ask anyway just in case.

Aziraphale ushered him inside without hesitation. “We’d best find him quickly. We’ll need a plan.”

“‘We’…?” Crowley repeated, stepping inside. “I mean, er. Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Sit down.” Aziraphale directed him into the back room and summoned another armchair for him. “Why did you think it was Warlock? You had better tell me everything.”

“Everything?”

The disbelief in his voice only made Aziraphale’s guilt stronger. He hadn’t let Crowley tell him very many things at all during the time they had known each other. And, when he had, Aziraphale had rarely listened. But now the world was going to end if they didn’t do something fast. “Everything,” he confirmed. “Spare no detail.”


	15. 2019 A.D., London (Saturday afternoon)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saturday is going to come in three parts, because it turns out that is where most of the content is in this show/book. CW for temporary suicide in this chapter.

Crowley shut the door to his flat, locked it, and begged it not to open for anyone. He hurried further into his flat, as if backing himself further into a corner was going to accomplish anything. He was well and truly fucked this time. Hell knew what he’d done, both the part that was on accident and the part that was on purpose. Hastur was on his way here right now. He should have just killed the antichrist when he’d had the chance, if he’d known he was going to be tortured anyway—Not that it would have mattered, because he’d had the _wrong boy_ the entire time—

“What are you all looking at?” he shouted as he crossed into his plant room, and the plants dutifully stopped looking and went back to quaking in their pots. Crowley speed-walked through to the study and rifled through the desk for anything that might be useful. There was nothing.

This was exactly the sort of predictably dangerous situation he should have had a plan B for. Maybe he could have built himself a hideout somewhere and covered the outside in anti-demonic sigils (though that would have made getting himself inside a little tricky), or cooked up some cover story to talk his way out of this. He wondered if he could have convinced Aziraphale to get him some holy water.

He had to run. Whatever Aziraphale thought, Earth wasn’t safe, for Crowley or anyone. Weird, that after all his years of denial, it was Aziraphale who insisted on still trying to save Earth. Crowley doubted that his plan of contacting upper management was going to accomplish anything when She was the one who had decided it all had to end in the first place.

Well, Crowley had given him the chance to escape with him, and he’d refused. Crowley didn’t really want to go on the run by himself, but that was Aziraphale’s choice. And, apparently, they weren’t even friends—

He realized he was touching the spot on his stomach where Aziraphale had healed him, and pulled his hand away. Plenty of time to think about that later.

Maybe he could give it one more shot. Even if Aziraphale wouldn’t come with him, maybe he’d at least help Crowley escape capture. It was worth a try. Crowley dialed his number and paced, muttering for him to pick up already.

“Hello?”

“Aziraphale—”

“I’m about to make a very important call upstairs,” the angel said impatiently. “What is it?”

“Ran into a spot of trouble,” said Crowley. “Don’t suppose you could, er, stop by my place with a bottle of holy water?”

There was silence on the other end of the line for what felt like several minutes. Crowley thought he might have put down the phone. Then, he shrieked, “Absolutely not, Crowley!” And hung up.

Well, that settled that. Crowley looked at the phone blankly before he set it down. He’d have thought that, after all this time, Aziraphale would at least be willing to help him out when his life was at stake.

The doorbell rang. Crowley froze. Then, a familiar, low, demonic voice called, “Crowww-leyyyy…”

“Ssshit,” Crowley hissed. In a panic, he picked up the globe from his desk, though he had no idea what for. Maybe he could bean Hastur or Ligur over the head before they dragged him down to eternal torment. He should have left Earth immediately instead of wasting time trying to think his way out of things down here. Hopped in the Bentley and…Would the Bentley take him into space? He hadn’t actually planned out the details.

The door slammed open, and Crowley cursed it for not following directions. He could hear Hastur and Ligur’s footsteps now, drawing closer.

“Crowww-leyyyy…”

“We know you’re in there.”

“Sssshit,” Crowley hissed again. They must have heard him that time, because the footsteps sped up. He caught a glimpse of Ligur through the partially-open door. This, he thought, would have been a great time for a last-minute plan.

“Crowww-leyyy…”

Crowley backed up against the wall, taking one last, frantic look around the study. It was no good. He was cornered. He had nothing.

Ligur pushed the door open with a nasty smirk. “Nowhere left to run, snakey.”

He was right. Crowley took the only available exit, and threw himself out the window.

Hastur and Ligur stuck their head out the broken window and looked down onto the pavement below. “Well,” said Hastur, “I guess that takes care of that.”

“Slippery bastard,” growled Ligur. “Least he’s stuck downstairs now, and out of the way. The paperwork will tie him up for years.”

They both pulled their heads inside and stood in his flat for a moment, unsure of exactly what to do. “We could set the place on fire,” Hastur suggested.

“Yeah.” Ligur snapped his fingers and a flamethrower appeared in his hand. “That’s always fun. It’s not like he’ll be needing any of this.”

Crowley’s second discorporation was a lot easier than the first. He’d hit the ground so hard that he woke up in hell with no residual pain at all. He did have some residual flinching, and a tiny bit of residual screaming, but that mostly just served to startle the demons in the re-corporation department long enough for Crowley to sprint past them and take the first available door back to Earth. He had no corporation, but it wasn’t like they were going to give him one anyway, after everything he’d done. Earth was crawling with humans in corporations. It couldn’t be too much trouble to just borrow one for a little bit. Other demons did that all the time.

That could wait, though. First, he needed to find Aziraphale and let him know what had happened, and what he intended to do about it. The door he’d taken came out somewhere in what he guessed was Mongolia, but luckily as a soul he wasn’t bound to the normal laws of physics and could simply zoom all the way to London in the blink of an eye. Figuring out which direction that was in took a little longer, and then Crowley was off. He aimed for Aziraphale’s bookshop.

It was on fire. It was also, he discovered upon dashing inside and making a desperate search of the place, empty.

This was easily the worst day Crowley had ever had.

Aziraphale staggered on his feet and blinked in the blinding white light of heaven. His head was spinning so much that it took him a moment to realize what had happened. Oh, no. He looked down at his fingers, which wavered like an insubstantial mirage. Oh, no, no, no, not again, not _now_ —

“You! You’re late.”

“Yes!” Aziraphale spun around. Were they handing out uniforms already? It couldn’t be that close, could it? He still needed to—Well, talking to the Metatron hadn’t worked, but there must be something he could still do, if he could just find Crowley—

Crowley. The words _spot of trouble_ and _holy water_ chased each other through his head, and for a minute he forgot everything else.

“Aziraphale, isn’t it? Angel of the Eastern Gate?” The quartermaster gave him a disapproving glance. “Discorporated again, I see.” Aziraphale couldn’t see the mark he made on his clipboard, but he guessed that it wasn’t good.

“Yes, er—So sorry about—I, actually, I need to go back,” he stuttered.

The quartermaster ignored him and shoved a uniform at him. “Your whole platoon is waiting for you. Do you have the flaming sword you were issued, at least?”

“I, er.” Aziraphale looked away.

He could feel the quartermaster glaring at him as he walked around the table. Then he started yelling. Aziraphale shut his eyes and shrank away from it. He stopped listening to the actual words. It was nothing he hadn’t heard before. He was, really, a pathetic excuse for an angel. He didn’t want to fight, and he was late for Armageddon, and he had discorporated himself at the worst possible time—

He needed to get back. Crowley was in trouble. Crowley was in enough trouble that he had chosen holy water as his way out, and Aziraphale had gone and _discorporated._

The quartermaster finally ran out of things to shout. Aziraphale tried to say something, but his voice wouldn’t come out. Instead, he just set the uniform back on the table.

“What do you think you’re doing?” said the quartermaster. “You get into position _right now—_ ”

“I—I can’t do that.” It came out as mostly a whisper. Aziraphale had never done anything quite like this before, unless you counted the time he’d raised his voice at Gabriel, which he hadn’t meant to do. He’d never refused orders, and certainly never on purpose.

That infuriated the quartermaster. He stepped forward into Aziraphale’s personal space. “Listen here, you coward—”

“I was in the middle of something terribly important,” said Aziraphale, his voice a little stronger this time. “I need to—I _demand_ to be returned to Earth.”

Maybe “demand” was a bit much, but Aziraphale was running on panic and adrenaline. Every second he wasted, Crowley might be looking for holy water, or he might be one step closer to whatever he was afraid of that was worse. Aziraphale needed to reach him, and then he’d explain about Adam and Tadfield and they would figure something out—

“Without a body?” the quartermaster scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”

Aziraphale deflated a little. He was right. The process of getting another body was long and inconvenient, and he didn’t have time for that right now. With a sigh, he looked over at the gigantic globe rotating in place at the edge of the room. It was _right there._

The quartermaster was looking down at his clipboard again, and the other angels stood at attention, almost motionless. _Without a body._ He realized with a start that nobody was going to stop him.

It started with a few cautious steps, and then a few faster ones. The quartermaster looked up, but didn’t go after him. “What are you…Where are you going?”

Aziraphale kept walking. Nobody followed him. It probably hadn't entered any of their minds that he might actually go through with it. He doubted it for a moment himself, and his feet slowed—What was he doing? If they found him missing when the trumpets sounded, he’d be punished for certain. This was worse, even, than giving away the flaming sword—

Except the only real friend he’d ever had was in trouble. He drew a deep breath, took another few steps forward and touched the globe. They could still save everything. He just needed to find Crowley before it was too late.

He was too late.

Smoke poured from the windows of Crowley’s flat, and nothing the firefighters did was working. It was spreading to the rest of the building. Aziraphale floated up to Crowley’s floor to search for him—He didn’t think he’d be able do much if he found Crowley still inside, but it was worth checking, just in case—But the heat rolling off the flames felt too real to his current insubstantial form, and he stopped himself feet from the window as he realized why that was.

Hellfire. Demons had come after Crowley.

Aziraphale drew a shuddering breath and cursed himself for not listening and bringing the holy water. Of course it hadn’t been what he thought. Of _course,_ after everything Crowley had done to talk Aziraphale into this harebrained scheme, he wasn’t planning to take the easy way out.

Aziraphale glanced down and saw that maybe he had taken the easy way out after all.

“No—” he choked, lowering himself to the ground next to the broken body below the window. Crowley was lying on the pavement in a pool of blood, his limbs turned in awkward directions. Mercifully, the unnatural twist of his head kept Aziraphale from seeing his face. He covered his mouth with one hand and tried to look away. At least it was a long fall, he told himself, so it would have been quick. And discorporated was better than permanently destroyed.

It didn’t change the fact that Crowley was gone, and Aziraphale didn’t think he could stop Armageddon on his own.

“That’s really unsettling,” said a familiar voice.

Aziraphale spun around, so relieved that he didn’t bother to stifle his smile. “Crowley!”

“Hi, angel.” The demon cracked a grin, but he looked a little emotional. “You’re okay.”

“And you’re…”

They looked at each other for a moment, taking in the blurred edges and the way the lines that made them both up kept wobbling. “Are you serious?” said Crowley, at the same time as Aziraphale said, “ _Both_ of us?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who you gonna call?  
> GHOST HUSBANDS


	16. 2019 A.D., London (Saturday evening)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Road trip?

“So, what?” Aziraphale asked, as he and Crowley watched the so-called medium make a series of weird, pointless faces to “build a bridge to the spirit world.” “We both just jump in at once?”

“Yep,” said Crowley. “Shh, she’ll open up to the etherial plane any second now.”

“Are you sure she’s even receptive? This doesn’t appear to be a real seance.”

“Which of us is the expert on possession, Aziraphale?”

“Oh, you’ve done this before?”

Crowley didn’t answer immediately. “It’ll be fine, don’t worry. On my signal.”

“I wasn’t worried until you said that.”

“ _Angel._ Do you want to save the world or not?”

Aziraphale sighed. “On your signal, then.”

“Alright…Now!”

The lights flickered, and the windowpanes rattled, and the “séance” turned into something significantly more real and dangerous. Human corporations weren’t intended to house more than one soul, and as two extra ones attempted to enter the medium’s head, her brain short-circuited and started firing electrical signals at random. She convulsed, her eyes bugging out and her face twisting and snarling as she shrieked, and trumpeted, and sang, and recited parts of famous films. Her guests had idea what to make of it, so they just sort of sat there and hoped that, since Madam Tracy would know more about these things than they did, she had it under control.

Then the medium’s brain stabilized itself, her corporation relaxed, and the lights and the wind went back to normal. She opened her eyes.

“Aziraphale?” she asked, in a very different voice.

There was a moment’s pause, and then she said, in another voice, “I thought you were going to do a countdown.”

Madam Tracy slammed on the Bentley’s brakes.

“Why are you stopping?” asked Aziraphale. “We are in a bit of a hurry here.”

“We may have difficulty getting through that.” She pointed up ahead. The road was blocked by a ring of fire.

Crowley cursed, and muttered something like, “Figures.”

The car sat there in the road for a moment, and then one of them took Tracy’s foot from the brake and moved it to the accelerator.

“What’s going on?” Aziraphale asked. “Who’s doing that?”

“It certainly isn’t me,” said Madam Tracy.

The car pulled up onto the pavement and drove steadily towards the wall of fire.

Aziraphale’s voice rose. “Crowley?”

“We’ll be fine,” said the demon.

“The road’s aflame,” Sergeant Shadwell mumbled from the backseat. “It really is the end times.”

“Why’d we have to bring him?” Crowley complained.

“ _Another one bites the dust!_ ” sang Freddie Mercury.

“If you’re planning to discorporate all of us,” said Aziraphale, “Could you at least change the music to something a little less…morbid?”

“Nah, we’ll be fine,” Crowley assured him, and cranked up the radio. “Lighten up. This’ll be fun.”

“Aaaaaaaah!”

“Would you stop—”

“I’ve already discorporated once today!”

“Oh my God—”

“Would you two shut up,” Crowley shouted over them. “All this screaming’s making my throat sore.”

“It’s _my_ throat,” Tracy argued. “I’ll scream as much as I like.”

Freddie Mercury was still singing, “ _Hey, they’re gonna get you too, another one bites the dust!_ ”

The Bentley burst through the other side of the wall of fire, still wreathed in flame. “See,” said Crowley. “No harm done.”

“My dear fellow, this car is _actively on fire_ —”

“And we’re all fine!” Crowley insisted. “I’m keeping the flames out. Oh, Shadwell. Is Shadwell alright?”

The three of them turned their collective head. Shadwell had fainted in the backseat.

“The poor dear’s had a very trying day,” said Tracy in an apologetic tone. “I’m sure it’s all become a bit much.”

“Eyes on the road, Crowley,” Aziraphale pointed out.

“They’re your eyes, too—”

“On the road!”

Crowley echoed under his breath in a mocking tone, but turned to face the right way again.

“I’m sorry,” said Aziraphale, as they hurtled along the road in a car that really shouldn’t have been holding together at this point.

Nobody said anything for a moment. It wasn’t really clear who he was talking to.

“That I didn’t bring the holy water,” he clarified. “I thought you’d…given up.”

Shadwell perked up. “Holy water?”

“You thought I wanted it for myself?” Crowley said quietly.

“I—I couldn’t let you do that.”

“What’s the southern pansy on about?” asked Shadwell.

“I’m not sure,” said Madam Tracy, “but I’d rather not get in the middle of it.”

There was a brief pause. “Please don’t ask me that again,” said Aziraphale. “And, for God’s sake, don’t go jumping out of windows.”

“Right,” mumbled Crowley.

Shadwell blinked hard. “Windows—?”

Madam Tracy shushed him. “They’re having a moment.”

“We’re not!” Crowley protested. At least one of them was blushing. “Demons don’t have _moments._ ”

“It’s getting a little warm in here, Crowley,” said Aziraphale.

Crowley opened his mouth to vehemently deny it, and then realized what Aziraphale meant and focused a little harder on keeping the flames on the outside of the car. “Well, _someone_ distracted me,” he grumbled.

“Excuse me,” said the Antichrist. “Why are you three people?”

Madam Tracy, Aziraphale, and Crowley all tried to blink at slightly different times. “Ah,” said Aziraphale. “Um, long story—”

“That’s too many people,” said Adam. Tracy stretched apart into three separate people again.

“Much better,” said Crowley, cracking his neck. “Was bloody crowded in there.”

War raised her sword, and fire sprung to life along its edges. Crowley took several steps back without thinking. Why would a flaming sword be here? They were issued by heaven. His eyes flitted around in case more should show up. His stomach twinged with a memory of pain, and he wrapped one arm around it protectively.

No, what was he doing? He’d come here to save the world, not hide in the back like a coward while an eleven-year old girl faced off against the personification of War. That sword would do a lot worse to her than give her a scar. Ashamed, he forced himself to step forward again.

Aziraphale put an arm out to stop him. “I think she has it under control.”

Crowley blinked at him in surprise, then turned just as the girl stamped on War’s ankle. The sword clattered onto the ground, and the girl scooped it up, her face full of indignant rage. She ran War straight through.

“Her footwork was atrocious,” said Aziraphale, as Crowley stared, wide-eyed, at the smoking remains of War. “It’s no wonder the girl caught her off-balance.”

The ground shook beneath them. Aziraphale struggled to keep his balance. Crowley was already on the ground. “Right,” said the demon, looking up at him. “That was that. It was nice knowing you.”

“We can’t give up now.” After all the trouble they had gone to, Aziraphale couldn’t just let Crowley throw up his hands and quit. There had to be some way out of this. Crowley needed to come up with a plan, Crowley _always_ had a plan—

“This is Satan himself,” said Crowley, his voice rising. “It isn’t about Armageddon, this is personal. We are fucked!”

Another tremor wracked through the ground. Aziraphale reeled backwards, and his foot hit something which made a metallic sound as it scraped across the ground.

“Come up with _something,_ ” he demanded, picking up the sword and raising it. “Or—”

He realized with sudden horror what he looked like he was doing. The sword wasn’t on fire, but what did that matter, when he could light it with a thought? What was he thinking? After he’d just seen what the sword could do to the horsepeople? When he knew what it had already done to Crowley?

He dropped the sword and raised both hands, but Crowley hadn’t scrambled away like he might have expected. He didn’t even look afraid. Just sad.

“O-or I’ll never talk to you again,” Aziraphale managed. Of course he’d never hurt Crowley. That had been the best threat he could come up with, and he didn’t even know if he could follow through with that.

Something changed in Crowley’s face. Had that actually been enough? He staggered to his feet, grunted with some monumental exertion, and pointed both hands at the sky. Time stopped.

In the end, it was the humans (and Adam, who was human enough in allegiance) who did most of the work. Crowley lowered the tire iron, which wouldn’t have done much good anyway if Satan had tried anything. He glanced over at Aziraphale. At least the flaming sword was a real weapon, and actually looked intimidating.

The flames flickered out, and Crowley relaxed a bit. The sword didn’t frighten him much when it was in Aziraphale’s hands, but it still brought up unpleasant memories. The angel looked down at the sword, his brow furrowed. He turned it over and tested the weight of it in his hand.

“Someone probably ought to collect the rest,” said Crowley, nodding at the bronze scales and tarnished crown that Famine and Pollution had left behind. He miracled up a cardboard box and stooped to pick them up

“Ah—Yes, you’re quite right,” said Aziraphale, dragging his attention away from the sword. “I suppose someone should keep them all safe.

Crowley dropped the scales and crown into the box with a clatter, then held out the box to Aziraphale and cleared his throat.

Aziraphale looked at the box, then back at the sword. “I can just hold onto this,” he said with a nervous smile. “Wouldn’t do to have it knocking about with other metallic objects. They could chip the blade.”

Crowley hadn’t known heaven-forged blades could chip, but he wasn’t the expert. With a shrug, he folded up the flaps of the box. “D’you think he’d give us a lift back to Tadfield?” he asked, glancing over to where Adam’s father was berating the children who had just saved the world. His grip on the tyre iron tightened. He tried not to think about the Bentley.

“His car will be rather full already,” said Aziraphale. “It can’t be that far of a walk. Anyway, we aren’t in a rush.”

Crowley, who had been in a rush all day, and possibly for the past eleven years, felt the tension drain from his shoulders. As they started walking back, he tipped his head back to look at the sunset, which should have been the last one this world ever had. “Can’t believe we actually did it.”

Aziraphale chuckled. “I don’t think we did very much, besides being incompetent.”

Crowley paused in his walking. Practically everything Aziraphale done today went directly against his programming as an angel. The panic must have kept him going, but now that it was over he’d surely realize what he’d done, and then he’d frantically try to distance himself from it and from Crowley. It wouldn’t be the first time. If he was already talking about his incompetence, the rest wouldn’t be far behind. Crowley looked up at Aziraphale, braced for the guilt and blame he knew he’d see in the angel’s face.

Aziraphale was smiling. He looked perfectly content, if a little tired. The smile faded a little. “Is something wrong, Crowley?”

“Uh, no,” said Crowley quickly. “I just resent being called incompetent, is all.”

“You did raise the wrong boy as the Antichrist.”

Crowley cringed at the thought. “Yeesh. Warlock’s gonna have some issues, isn’t he?”

“Perhaps we should see about getting him a good therapist,” said Aziraphale. “It’s the least we can do.”

Crowley glanced at him. He said “we” so casually, even though he had abandoned that plan after two years. Although, that had apparently plagued him so much that his first reaction to seeing Crowley four years later was to apologize for leaving. Crowley’s steps slowed. “Aziraphale…”

He turned around. “Yes, my dear fellow?”

Crowley hesitated, trying to find a good way to word what he wanted to ask. _Is this really it? Have you actually broken heaven’s hold on you, or are you going to run back to them at the first opportunity? How long is it going to last this time?_

“Crowley?”

Even if he did ask, Aziraphale probably wouldn’t know. And Crowley wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. He’d find out sooner or later, anyway. “Nevermind. Let’s just find a bus stop.”


	17. 2019 A.D., London (Saturday night)

The delivery van trundled away with Aziraphale’s flaming sword inside. Aziraphale watched it go almost mournfully, wondering what sort of six-thousand-year journey had brought it into War’s hands. If he’d held onto it a little more tightly in the Beginning, he wondered, would she have been unarmed today? Or, if Adam and Eve hadn’t had it, would things have gotten to that point at all?

“Did you ever have a flaming sword?” Crowley asked, interrupting his train of thought. The demon took a careless swig from the wine bottle they were sharing. “You seemed to know how to handle it well enough.”

Aziraphale sighed and looked down at his knees. “I…I did have one, yes. In the Beginning.” His eyes flitted back the way the delivery van had gone.

Crowley caught his look, and his eyebrows rose. “That was…?”

Aziraphale bit his lip and nodded.

“How the heaven it get here, then? D’you misplace it, or what?”

“I…” Aziraphale’s throat closed up a little. Crowley knew a lot of embarrassing things about him, but he’d hoped the demon would never learn this one. He didn’t want Crowley to think less of him. He thought for a moment about lying, and then decided he’d lied to Crowley enough. “I…gave it away.”

“You _what?_ ”

“Yes, I know,” he said miserably. “Eve was having such a bad day, and it was going to get cold at night, and they needed _something_ to protect themselves—It was an impulse decision, I didn’t know what else to do—” He put his head in his hands. “Bungled my very first assignment on Earth, I know. I'm a fine example of an angel.”

“Are you kidding?”

Aziraphale looked up and shut his mouth. He’d thought for certain Crowley was going to laugh at him, or worse, pity him and start lying about how it was no big deal. Instead, Crowley stared at him with something like awe. “Er.” Aziraphale fidgeted. He didn’t quite know how to cope with being looked at like that.

Crowley noticed he was staring and looked away. He took another swig from the bottle and passed it to Aziraphale. “You’re something else, angel.”

“Er,” said Aziraphale again. “Do you mean that in a good way, or a bad way?”

“Neither.” Crowley grinned. “You know that’s where you and I both do our best work.”

Aziraphale blinked. He often forgot about the third option. He liked the sound of it. “That’s true,” he said with a smile, and took a drink of wine.

The lights of the bus finally glided into view. Crowley waved to catch the driver’s attention.

“It says Oxford on the front,” Aziraphale pointed out.

“Yeah, but he’ll drive to London anyway,” said Crowley. “Just won’t know why.”

“I suppose I should get him to drop me off at the bookshop.”

Crowley spun to face him, biting his lip. Nobody had told him. How had Crowley not thought to tell him? _The bookshop burned down_. It should have been the first thing out of his mouth when he found Aziraphale afterwards. Should have just gotten it over with. _Your home, and all your most treasured belongings, have been reduced to ash. There’s nothing left._ Easy.

No, it wasn’t easy. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to say. “Aziraphale,” he started, and stopped to swallow. “Sssome bad news. Uh, your bookshop…” He tried to find a good way to phrase it, but there wasn’t one. “It burned down.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. “What?”

Crowley nodded, a lump forming in his throat. “Er, if you need a place to stay…” He trailed off, remembering the plumes of smoke pouring from the windows of his own flat when he’d gone back to sit out the end of the world in his Bentley, and instead, against all odds, found Aziraphale. Crowley didn’t have a home anymore, either.

Aziraphale seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “Where…where do you think we ought to go?” he asked shakily.

There was that “we” again. The bus stopped in front of them and opened its doors, but there didn’t seem to be much point in getting on anymore. Crowley looked up at the sky, clear and dotted with twinkling stars. “It’s a nice night out. Maybe we can figure something out in the morning.”

Aziraphale nodded. “I don’t think I’d be able to get much sleep after all of today’s excitement, anyway.”

Crowley made a noise of agreement. “And we’ve still got that prophecy to work out, right?”

The bus driver got impatient, closed the doors, and drove on towards Oxford.

“Actually,” said Aziraphale, “I may have an idea about that.”

“I’m not going back.”

Crowley raised his head. Between the wine and the events of the day, he’d gotten sleepy and started to doze off on the bench. He missed his bed. His sunglasses had slipped off his nose, so he pushed them back up. “Wassat?”

Aziraphale was holding the wine bottle with both hands, looking straight ahead with something like shock on his face. “I mean.” His eyes flicked up at the sky. “I’m not. Ever. I’m…unemployed.”

Crowley’s heart sank. So this was it, then. It had taken longer than he had expected for it all to sink in for Aziraphale, but he’d gotten there, like Crowley knew he would. He’d hoped Aziraphale might stay with him for just a little longer.

“It’s been so long,” said Aziraphale. “It’s been…always. I tried so hard for them, and I…” He sounded like he might start crying.

Crowley straightened, alarmed. He wanted to comfort Aziraphale, but didn't know if he was able, when he was the one who had talked Aziraphale into going against orders in the first place.

Aziraphale drew a ragged breath. “When I talked to the Metatron,” he said. “I never realized…I really—really overstepped, broke all their rules—I’ve never done that before. I might never have done it at all if not for—” He broke off, turned just a little, and grabbed Crowley’s wrist. “Crowley—”

Crowley tensed. Aziraphale had reached the inevitable conclusion: he was a traitor to heaven, and it was Crowley’s fault. He doubted Aziraphale would forgive him after this. Destroying his friendship with Aziraphale should have been a small price to pay for saving billions of lives on Earth, but it didn’t feel like it. Crowley should probably just leave now, and get it over with. He would have stood up, except he didn’t want to throw away the last few seconds Aziraphale would tolerate his company.

“—Thank you,” Aziraphale finished, giving his wrist a squeeze.

Crowley didn’t move. “Thank,” he repeated numbly. “What?”

“I should have done something years ago.” He sniffled, and Crowley saw with horror that he really was crying now. “I’ve been such a coward. I’m s-sorry—”

“Don’t be sorry.” Crowley miracled up a handkerchief and handed it to him. “Y’helped me save the world. Forget heaven, you don’t need that lot.”

“No, I don’t.” Aziraphale took the handkerchief gratefully and dabbed at his eyes. “Not when I have…”

Instead of finishing the sentence, he glanced briefly at Crowley with a shy smile. There was a warmth growing in Crowley’s chest. At some point, the hand Aziraphale had around Crowley’s wrist had loosened and slipped down to cover the back of his palm.

Both of them noticed it at the same time and pulled their hands away awkwardly. “It’s getting near sunrise,” said Aziraphale. “Shall we swap now?”

“Sssure,” Crowley hissed a little nervously, and held out his hand. Aziraphale took it, and he felt something like an electric shock as they traded forms. When his eyes blinked back into focus, we was looking at himself sitting primly on the other end of the bench.

“You remember the plan?” Aziraphale said, in a less drawling version of Crowley’s voice.

“Split up, head back to London and poke around for a bit, meet at St. James at noon if everything goes alright,” Crowley answered in Aziraphale’s voice. This was possibly the riskiest part of their plan. If anything happened to Aziraphale while he was in hell—

“We _will_ meet at noon,” Aziraphale assured him. “This will work. I trust Agnes.”

Crowley didn’t trust Agnes any farther than he could throw that book of hers, which wasn’t far with his noodley arms. But he did trust Aziraphale. “Alright. You take the first bus, I’ll take the second. See you at noon.”

The first bus of the day came puttering around the corner, and Aziraphale got to his feet. “See you then, my dear.” He brightened. “We’ll have lunch.”

That sounded to Crowley like the perfect way to end a successfully executed plot. “Sounds good, angel,” he said. “You pick the place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! <3


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